


Obligation

by Ernzo



Category: Reylo - Fandom, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: All of the tension, Ben Solo is a very tall boy, Ben Solo is also lost figuratively, Ben Solo is lost Literally, Ben Solo swears like a smuggler, Ben has a Togruta kink he wasn't aware of, Eventual Smut, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Mild Angst, Mild Language, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey is a master of disguise, Rey is channeling her inner Ahsoka, Slow Burn, Supreme Leader Armitage Hux, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Where in the world is Kylo San Diego, Where is Ben?, mild violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-03-07 12:37:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 48,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13434882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ernzo/pseuds/Ernzo
Summary: Kylo Ren is gone. A coup d'état leaves him missing with Armitage Hux declaring himself the new Leader of the First Order. Rey must put aside her anger to find him.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, hello. *peeks head out* Here I am once again with another Ben Solo redemption story because I’m trash. This one is a bit of a darker story, but once again begins with Leia asking Rey to help Ben. Oops. 
> 
> Hope everyone enjoys! I love feedback!

The edges were fuzzy. A boy, no older than seven, runs through the high grass next to a lake. He laughs and squeals while an older man, his father, chases him. Handsome with kind eyes, his shirt loose and billowing in the wind as he chases the boy, calling his name, pretending he can’t find his son in the grass. The little boy giggles and runs faster. Then, silence. The boy thinks he’s won, he’s gleeful, excited as he waits, counting to ten. His father appears suddenly, crowing in victory as he jumps to capture his son in his strong arms. They fall backwards and laugh.

The water changes. The shore is different. No longer an endless sunny day on a lake, the skies turn grey and the waves of a dark ocean crash onto a black beach. Bone white driftwood litters the sand. Lightning crackles in the sky.

 

* * *

 

Rey wakes with a start. There’s sweat on her forehead and the sheets cling to her legs.

The storm outside her window has been raging all night. She loves the sound of rain, so different than she’s used to, and so calm, so soothing.

But tonight, the storm scares her. What had she been dreaming about? Had the storm outside influenced her dreams? The loud rumbles and cracks feel ominous, like something is coming. Like something is changing.

Rubbing her eyes, she tries to recall the dream, but it’s slipping away like sand.

Sand. There had been sand. And laughter. But also coldness. Two beaches.

She runs her hand over her face and sighs. Her dreams have been chaotic and worrisome for the past few weeks. She had never had a nightmare until a month ago, when her dreams had suddenly changed. They were always dark and led down a purposeful path. She felt fear, and in her dreams she was often running. Running from what, she never knew. She’d always wake up panting and afraid and be unable to fall back asleep for some time.

She figured that her dreams were a reflection of the stress and chaos of the waking world. The First Order still hunted them, always looming and lurking like a ghost, a ghost they could never seem to outrun.

Maybe that’s why she was always running in her dreams. But, she wasn’t running in this dream, at least she didn’t think she was.

She lays back against her pillows and stares up at the ceiling, and her mind wanders to Ben. She chastises herself for allowing her thoughts to betray her, but thinking of the First Order often leads her to think of him.

She feels into the force for him, and as always, she meets a wall. A wall that somehow always disappoints her. It’s been weeks since she’s been able to feel him in the force and it still hurts her every time she can’t find him. And she wishes she didn’t miss his presence now that it was gone.

In the weeks after Crait, the Force often shoved them together, as if it was a child trying to get its parents to reconcile. But, in every connection, Rey had been obstinate, cold, refusing to even acknowledge Ben when he appeared, after what he’d done. Whenever he appeared, she just continued whatever she was doing, without even a glance in his direction. Sometimes he talked to her, sometimes he screamed at her, sometimes he destroyed something, wherever he was, but she never even flinched.

One day, however, when she felt the familiar snap and echo of the connection, she heard nothing. Silence. Not even his breathing could be heard. It perplexed her and caused her, for the first time, to look around for him.

When her eyes found him, however, she was shaken by what she saw.

He was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, with his knees up and his elbows resting on top. His head was leaned back, eyes closed and his face was streaked in blood. Deep circles hung below his eyes and he looked sick, gaunt.

“Ben?” she called, without thinking.

His eyes snapped open and he stared at her. She felt a shiver break through her, and she looked away, uneasy under his gaze.

In her periphery, she saw movement as he stood and when she looked at him again, she saw how much he had really changed.

He looked skinny. Gone was the deadly bulk of his shoulders and arms, gone was his broad chest. He looked lanky and awkward, more so than he already had, but he had lost so much weight, his arms and legs looked too long, disproportionate.

The blood on his face must have been his own, she could see it running down his arm to his hand, blooming from a deep gash in his bicep.

Her eyebrows creased as she looked over him, struggling to understand.

There hadn’t been any attacks on the First Order in a while, and surely none that the Supreme Leader would have been present for. How had he become so hurt? Why did he look so thin?

“Ben?” She asked again, her indifference for him suddenly forgotten as she took in his sunken features.

He walked to her and stopped in front of her, the closest that had been in months, and he reached his hand out, his eyes almost dreamy, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His fingers brushed her cheek and then felt cool, wet. She flinched.

“You won’t have to worry anymore,” he murmured, and then he was gone.

Her hand wiped her cheek where he had touched her, and when she pulled it away, his blood was on her hand.

The only person she had told about her bond with Ben and how it had come to be, was Leia. She was afraid to tell anyone else, afraid that no one would understand.

Leia barely understood when Rey explained it to her, but she listened and always asked Rey if she had seen or heard from Ben. Rey would often just tell her that they had connected, but Leia understood Rey’s reluctance to engage him during these meetings, after what had happened in Snoke’s throne room.

However, she kept this last meeting to herself. That had been the last time she had seen him, the last time the Force had connected them, and she couldn’t help but be worried and disappointed. Who had hurt him? Was he in danger?

She rolled restlessly in her bed, trying to get comfortable enough to fall back asleep. The storm had calmed, but the rain still pounded against the roof, against her window. She tried to focus on the sound, the repetitive percussion of the rain drops in an effort to lull herself back to sleep.

The sleep that came was uneasy. She dreamed of red. Red curtains. Red planets made of salt. The red of his lightsaber. The red of his blood on her cheek.

She dreamed of black sand once more.

* * *

 

The next morning, Rey walks into the war room feeling tired and irritable. She didn’t feel like listening to more plans and more attack strategies. All she wants to do was go back to bed and sleep off the headache that was currently pounding through her brain. The storm still raged outside.

Rey slumps into a corner near the back, hoping to be able to make a quick exit once the meeting was adjourned. She leans her head against the wall and closes her eyes, listening as Leia called them all to order.

“Good morning,” she begins, her voice measured, tense. “I’ll get right to it, we’ve received some troubling news over the past few days, and we finally got some confirmation last night. Our intel has lead us to believe that the Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren is either dead or has gone missing.”

Rey’s eyes snap open in alarm only to find the General looking right at her. Ben’s bloody face flashes through her mind.

“We have been hearing for some time that there may have been some sort of coup, but we had no further information. We haven’t heard from him in weeks, and there have been no holo recordings of him broadcast anywhere in the galaxy. But, last night, a recording of General Hux was broadcast through most of the star systems declaring himself the new leader of the First Order.”

Uneasy murmuring spreads through the crowd.

“This,” Leia calls, her voice rising over the buzzing, “This could either be the break we need, with unrest and no doubt a power struggle, or this could be very, very dangerous for all of us. Hux is ruthless. We, at the very least, knew what we were getting into with Ren after Snoke died. But, Hux is more unstable, more unpredictable. We will need everyone on board with ideas and strategy about how to proceed against this new threat.”

“What about Ren?” Poe asks, looking around at the crowd, his eyes lingering on Rey for the briefest moment. “Are we going to assume that he’s dead? What if this is a diversion?”

Leia levels her gaze at Poe, and she smiles. She always had a soft spot for him.

“I already have a plan for that and I will be setting it into motion as soon as possible. I don’t believe that he is dead, for many reasons.”

Leia’s eyes find Rey’s once more and her stomach drops.

“I want everyone looking into clues that could lead us to understand what’s happened. If Hux has seized power, we need to be under the assumption that his first act will be to hunt us down, with more anger and aggression than before, and he’s clearly been planning this for some time. I want a report after lunch with anything anyone can find. Understood?”

The crowd murmurs their agreement and Leia waves her hand in dismissal. Rey doesn’t need to be told to stay behind, she just knows.

As the last of the stragglers file out of the room, Rey makes her way over to Leia, who is talking adamantly to Poe. Rey smiles to herself; he always needed to know as much as possible. He always needed to know there was a plan.

When Rey was close enough to them, Leia motions for Poe to leave, dismissing him gently, which causes him to frown. But he says nothing, exiting the war room with everyone else.

When he is gone, Leia takes Rey’s hand warmly in her own.

“I assume you already know what I am going to ask you,” Leia states quietly, her wise eyes searching Rey’s tired ones.

Rey nods and looks away. She hopes that Leia won’t be upset that she had kept something from her.

“When was the last time he came to you?” She asks, her voice soft.

Rey squints her eyes shut, her face almost a grimace, before she turns back to Leia.

“He came to me, three weeks ago. I should have told you, but I didn’t understand what I saw. I didn’t know until now.”

“It’s okay. Just tell me, so we can try to understand together.”

Rey looks at the older woman for a long moment before she sighs.

“It was bad. It was the first time I’d actually spoken to him since that day, because I was so struck by what I saw. He was so thin, Leia, he was hurt, he was bleeding.”

Concern cut through every line on Leia’s face.

“What did he tell you?”

“Nothing. We barely said anything, he just told me I didn’t have to worry anymore. I don’t know what he meant. They must have mutinied against him. Attacked him, and he ran.” She absently hoped that she had seen him already on the run. Not trapped. His words echoed in her mind.

Leia dropped Rey’s hand and stepped away. She began pacing, her hand on her chin as she walked, thinking.

“And, you haven’t been connected since?”

“No,” Rey breathes, her headache still pounding.

“He is not dead. I would feel it,” Leia decides and Rey nods her head in agreement.

“I feel for him, and I find a wall. It feels like him, but I can’t go any further. If he was-“ Rey finds herself hesitating to say anything more.

“I know.”

Leia stops in front of Rey once more.

“If there has been a coup, he may have connected with you when he was running. We must find him. He is the key to stopping the First Order. But,” Leia looks worried. “Where would we even begin to look for someone who doesn’t want to be found?”

Realization comes to Rey like a bolt of lightning from the storm outside.

“My dream,” she breathes and Leia looks at her with confusion.

“You had a dream about him?”

Rey shakes her head. “No. No, I don’t think so. But last night, I dreamed of a lake,” her brows furrow as she tries to recall more helpful details.

“We used to visit the lake country on Naboo when he was a boy. I don’t know if he would go there...” She trailed off, uncertain.

“No,” Rey says again, as more details come to her. “There was something else. It was dark. A storm,” she’s whispering now. “Black sand. A dark sky.” Had she been dreaming of his location? Did he mean to let her see?

Leia takes her hand again and gives her a squeeze.

“We need more,” she urges. “It’s something, but we need more. Will you go find him, Rey?”

Rey looks at Leia, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

No, she does not want to go find him. He is the last person in the galaxy she wants to find. She had gone to him once and he had betrayed her.

But, as she looks into Leia’s kind eyes, the same kind eyes that Ben shares, she is uncertain. The man she thought she knew might still be there somewhere. That man ran from the First Order, he was in danger now, and she could help him. Did he want help?

“I don’t know if I can,” Rey whispers, pulling her hand gently from Leia’s. “And I’m sure the First Order is looking everywhere for him, too.”

Leia’s hands come to Rey’s shoulders. “I know that I ask too much of you. But, I gave up on him, and I regret it. If I were young enough to go find him myself, I would leave today. But, I am weary and not who I once was. Jumping on starships and flying across the galaxy is for a younger woman.” She drops her hands and looks away. “I just want to know that I tried. I just want him to know I tried.”

Rey wraps her arms around herself and takes a deep breath. “Then I will try. Not for him, but for you.”

Leia looks at her and smiles, the glimmer of tears threatening to fall.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there were any more left of me  
> I'd give it to you  
> And I'll tell you that I am fine  
> But I'm a missile that's guided to you

When Rey finally escapes to her room once more, she is exhausted, and her headache is so bad that she feels nauseous. She collapses on her bed, face down, and pulls her pillow up over her head. Her temples throb and her eyes hurt, and she tries desperately to quiet her mind, to allow herself some relief.

She relaxes her forehead, trying to avoid allowing her face to contort into a grimace, because that too, hurts. She thinks of things that make her happy, peaceful. She thinks of Finn, his kind eyes. She thinks of the rain in Ahch-to, cool and refreshing. Soothing against her skin.

It doesn’t help.

Her mind falls to Ben, and she groans to herself. She worries about her mission, worries about disappointing Leia. Worries about finding him.

The pain crescendos and she can’t take it anymore. She rapidly rises from her bed, and rushes to the lavatory, getting sick into the toilet. She retches until she feels like her mind might simply split open from the pain, blinding white through her mind. She collapses back onto the cool floor, panting, her hands coming to cover her face.

As she lays there, catching her breath, she must admit that she does feel a bit better. The pain isn’t gone by any means, but it’s much less, a dull, but still debilitating throb. She wonders if she should risk moving back to her bed or just wait it out here on the floor.

She opts for the floor. It’s surprisingly comfortable under the circumstances.

The quiet of the lavatory suddenly changes, a vacuum sucking out the ambient noise followed by a harsh echo.

She snaps opens her eyes and sits up, trying to ignore the new roll of nausea that courses through her. She looks around the small room, and she sees the dark form of Ben, huddled on the floor of the shower, in much the same position as when she last saw him.

She’s struck at the absurdity of it.

“Are you actually sitting in a shower or is that just where you ended up on my end,” she asks, her voice hoarse and weak. It isn’t lost on her that the question is hardly appropriate for their first meeting in so long. Especially how he left her.

He looks up at her and regards her for a long moment, debating. He looks better, less tired, less sick. But, still thin.

He’s not bleeding today. 

“No, I’m not sitting in a shower.”

His voice is low, and rough, as if he hasn’t used it in a while. It causes her to shiver. She nods and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath through her nose. She presses her pointer fingers against her eyebrows to try to alleviate the pressure in her skull.

“Are you all right?” He asks, his voice still low.

Rey hesitates, unsure how to proceed. She’s not in the right state of mind to make the most out of this opportunity, she isn’t even sure what she would do if she was in the right state of mind. She’s been angry with him for a long time now, and she doesn’t know how to bridge the gap now. All she feels is relief that he seems okay, and it’s a foreign feeling for her.

“I feel like I should ask you that,” she tells him, her eyes still closed. “You seem okay for a dead man.”

He snorts derisively, and Rey looks up at him in time to see him roll his eyes, looking up at the ceiling, his jaw set and his mouth in a thin line.

“Do you care how I am? Why are you even talking to me? You’ve made it fairly clear that you want nothing to do with me.”

Irritation flares inside of Rey, causing her headache to pulse.

He groans and runs his hand over his face.

“I can feel your fucking headache, it’s flowing across the bond. Try calming your mind down. For both our sakes.”

“I have tried,” Rey replies through gritted teeth. 

“Try harder,” he snaps back at her, his eyes black. “I don’t need your headache on top of all of the pain I already feel.”

She fights the anger that wells inside of her and puts her elbows on her knees, digging the palms of her hands into her eyes. How had she seen light in him? He was a miserable brat, only concerned about himself.

_You’re nothing._

The words still stung, even though she tried to forget them. Tried to forget what came after. Tried to forget his offer. His hand. Her hope for something meaningful with him. Her hope for him.

She breathes in and out of her nose in an attempt to center herself. Her instruction on controlling her emotions is limited and she still relies only on herself to try to find calm and balance. She knows it isn’t the best but it was all she had in the moment. She also knows that he’s right. She knows that quieting her mind would help soothe her headache, but it was very difficult, with the weight of her mission and his presence.

“Try to find a center inside yourself to focus on,” he murmurs and despite herself, she listens. She focuses on an imaginary spot, deep in her ribs, watching as it ebbs lighter and darker, growing larger, until it fills her chest. She sighs as the tension leaves her body and the headache subsided just enough for her to feel human again. She looks up.

He’s watching her, an odd expression on his face.

“What?” She asks, self-consciously, pulling her knees closer to her chest. He merely shakes his head and looks away.

They sit in silence, and Rey feels like both of them are simply waiting for the connection to close. As her mind clears a bit, she wonders if she should try to get something out of him while they are together. There’s no knowing when they will have an opportunity to be connected again. 

She looks at him again and reaches her mind to him. Just a light brush, like a moth’s wing against the very edge of his thoughts. She sees him physically startle. 

“What are you doing?” He asks sharply, shifting and pulling his cloak tighter around himself. 

“Are you safe?” She asks, and the question hangs heavy between them. She’s surprised to find that she genuinely wants to know, not just because Leia would want to know. 

He glares at her but, his feelings betray him. There is the glimmer of something in him, a small pleasure in her concern. 

“Do you think I’m going to tell you where I am? Want to come finish me off?” His voice is still low, but it’s light, conversational. 

“No, I just-,” she pauses, unsure of what to even say. She frowns at him. “You  _are_  somewhere safe, aren’t you?”

He sighs. “Yes. I’m well hidden. I’m fairly certain that many in the First Order think I’m actually dead, so it works in my favor.” He looks at her, and he tilts his head. “Why do you care?” He asks again. 

She doesn’t answer right away; she looks away, picking at loose thread on her pants.

“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. She peeks at him through her lashes and finds him staring, his gaze intense, causing her to shift uncomfortably. Something passes between them and his eyes soften.

“Are you going to talk to me now, when the Force connects us?”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes. “I suppose, only if you aren’t going to shout at me.”

He nods, the smallest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. She’s never seen him smile, and the warmth that spreads down to her toes startles her. He raises his eyebrows.

“Don’t,” she snaps, and he raises his hands in mock surrender. 

And suddenly, he’s gone. The rain outside is loud once more, and the ambient noises that echo against the tile around her are loud, jarring. She flops back onto the bathroom floor again and covers her face with her hands, her headache returning. 

 

* * *

 

She is awakened, hours later, by a sharp knock on her door. She gets up with significant effort off the floor and makes her way slowly out of the lavatory toward the door of her quarters. Her entire body feels like it’s been wrung out like a rag, and her joints are sore from sleeping on a hard floor. There is another knock, louder this time.

“I’m coming!” she groans, already annoyed at whoever is on the other side of the door.

When she finally makes it to the door and pulls it open, she’s nearly knocked off balance by BB-8 whizzing into the room, beeping happily, followed closely by Finn and Poe.

After they enter, she shuts the door behind them and leans heavily against it. She still feels a dull ache in her head, and she’s still exhausted.

“Hey, Rey,” Finn begins, turning to look at her, but he’s brought up short at the sight of her. “Hey, are you all right?” He moves toward her, concern etched in his features. He puts his hands on her upper arms and crouches to get a better look at her face. She nods.

“I’m fine. I just have a bad headache, is all. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Finn does not look convinced, but steps back from her. She moves around him to her bed, where she sits on the edge and looks up at the him and Poe.

“What’s up?”

“Leia said she had given you a mission! We wanted to know what it was, because she wouldn’t tell us, of course.”

Poe glances at Finn and smiles. “For the record, I did not agree to come to ask you what your mission was. I’ve learned my lesson well. If she wanted us to know, she would have told us, Finn.” BB-8 beeps in agreement with his master.

Finn ignores this and looks expectantly at Rey again, “So you really won’t tell us? Not even where you’re going?”

Rey tugs her hair loose from the leather strap keeping it in place. She rubs the sore spot on her scalp.

“I don’t know where I’m going.” She pauses for a moment before she looks up at them again. “Actually, I don’t really know _if_ I’m going anywhere, at least not for a while.”

This perplexes Finn, and he pulls a face that makes Rey smile.

“So, what is your mission, then?”

Rey just shrugs. She’s not sure if it’s really a secret, but she’s never told Finn about her connection to Kylo Ren. She knows he won’t understand, and surely Poe wouldn’t appreciate the idea their bond either, after what he had been through at Ben’s hands. Even if she were to simply tell them that Leia had assigned her the task of finding him, now that he was on the run, they would ask more questions. Questions she wasn’t really prepared to answer. Questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

Poe pats Finn on the back. “I told you that she wouldn’t tell us.”

Finn sighs and rolls his eyes.

“I actually have a message from Leia,” Poe adds, changing the subject. “She was a little worried when you didn’t show up for the briefing after lunch, so she wanted to know if you’d join her for dinner.”

Rey supposes that she should accept. She needs to tell Leia about Ben appearing in her shower. She pinches her eyes closed.

 _Maybe you shouldn’t phase it quite like that_ , she chastises herself, and shakes the mental image from her mind before it can even form.

She opens her eyes again to see Poe and Finn looking at her with concern once more.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to take you to the infirmary?” Poe asks, his eye brows furrowed.

Rey waves him off. “No, no I’m fine, really. Tell Leia I will join her, I’m just going to rest for a little while longer.”

Poe looks at her for a long moment before he nods. “Okay, I’ll let her know. I’ll send BB-8 to check on you and make sure you’re awake for dinner.”

The droid beeps happily and zooms back and forth in front of her. She smiles down at him.

“All right, thank you.”

Finn and Poe let themselves out and Rey slides down onto her pillows, pulling a blanket up over herself. Her aching body sighs in relief at being on a bed once more, and sleep finds her quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think, as always. Your thoughts and feedback mean so much to me and I love reading what everyone has to say. This story is a bit different than Exile, and I'm glad that so many of you like where this story is going. 
> 
> See you soon  
> xox


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some princes don't become kings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends!
> 
> This would have been out much earlier this week, but the time I have put aside for writing was used to read a lot of fanfiction. The state of my subscriptions is overwhelming. In the very best way. I had the hardest time writing this chapter, because I found myself unsure of the direction that I wanted to take it in terms of pace. I think I made my decision and I hope that everyone enjoys the next installment. I love so much reading all of your feedback.

She's up before BB-8 comes to wake her, showered and dressed and finally feeling more human.  The little droid does not wait to knock or be let in, he merely rolls in, unannounced, beeping happily. Loudly.

“I’m already awake, BB-8, there’s no need to shout!” Rey chastises him, good-naturedly.

He rolls to a stop in front of her, beeping instructions rapidly.

“All right, all right! I’m coming, lead the way.”

She follows him out her sleeping quarters and he takes her on the winding path that leads to Leia’s private quarters. He beeps a ‘good-bye’ and then rolls away happily back the way they came.

She watches him go and turns to knock on the door.

“Come in, Rey,” Leia’s voice calls gently.

Rey enters, and finds Leia sitting at a small table, set for two. She’s reading a holopad, concentrating while she absently stirs a cup of tea in front of her.

Rey walks to the table and clears her throat.

“Oh, yes hello. I’m sorry. I was just catching up on the last of the reports from today. Sit.” Leia motions for Rey to take the place across from her. “How are you feeling? Finn and Poe said that you’ve been ill all day.”

Rey nods. “I’m all right. I just had a headache for most of the day. I didn’t sleep well and the dreams I was having, I think it was just because of that.”

Leia surveys her closely as Rey takes her seat at the table.

“Anything good in the reports?” Rey asks, glancing over the table at the food, and picking up her fork.

“Nothing really,” Leia hedges, and Rey recognizes the hesitation in her voice.

“Is there something about Ben?”

Leia sets down the holopad and levels her gaze at Rey. “Not exactly. These are just the current movements of the First Order. The majority of the fleet has changed course to head into the Core. However,” Leia picks up her cup of tea and sips it deeply. “One _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyer did not go with the fleet. It remained at their last known position in the Mid Rim.”

Rey’s eyebrows crease, and she takes a bite of her dinner. “Why wouldn’t it go home with the rest of the fleet?”

“Hmmm, that’s the question, isn’t it? There are quite a few Stormtrooper training outposts in the Mid Rim, perhaps, it’s waiting and will rendezvous with one of them, to restock their trooper supply. Or,” Leia sips her tea again, “Or, they have a new mission. To look for something.” Leia raises her eyebrows, asking Rey if she follows her line of thinking.

“They’re going to look for him, aren’t they?”

Leia smiles tightly. “Yes, I believe so. They are going to want to do it slowly, without attracting attention. They must have some idea of where to look.”

Rey nods, looking away from Leia’s face, and puts down her fork, her dinner barely touched. “I saw him. Today.”

Leia sits up straighter and places her cup back on its saucer.

“When,” she demands.

“When I got back to my room from the meeting this morning. I wasn’t feeling well, and I got sick. He was there.”

Leia blows out a breath, and leans back in her chair, steepling her fingers. “At least he’s alive,” she observes. “Did he say anything helpful?”

Rey shakes her head. “No, but he looked all right. I asked him if was safe and he told me that he was well hidden.”

“He is overconfident.” Leia says, her voice low, troubled. “It’s been a failing of his since he was a child.”

A silence falls between them, both lost in their own memories of the man in question. Finally, Leia looks up and smiles again, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Anything else?”

“No. Just that we agreed to talk to each other if the Force does connect us. We will avoid… shouting at each other.”

Leia’s smile now reaches her eyes. “That seems like a fair compromise. Talking will help us find him.”

“Should I tell him?” Rey asks. “Or rather, should I ask him to let me find him?”

The older woman thinks for a moment before she sighs and shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t think he wants anyone to find him, let alone you or me.” Rey nods but she isn’t sure that’s true. She keeps this thought to herself, however. Despite the rift that has formed between them, she wonders what he would say if she offered herself to him now. “We don’t want to lose the progress we’ve already made.”

“What do you think that we should do?” Rey asks. “How do you think we will find him? What if I never get a clue of where he is?” Rey rubs her forehead now, the dull ache returning. This seems like a mission she will never be able to accomplish. There isn’t enough for her to go on. “It’s a gamble to rely on him.”

“It is,” Leia agrees. “And I would never gamble it all on him, not again.” Her eyes are far away once more. “That’s why I have a plan, with this new intel from today.”

Rey reaches for a roll in the basket of bread and takes a bite, waiting for Leia to detail her plan.

“I want you to follow that First Order ship.”

Rey swallows the bread thickly, and it feels like she’s swallowing a rock.

“What?” She pants, as the bread finally works its way down.

Leia smiles sadly at her. “It is a dangerous idea, I know that. But, it’s our best chance. If we can find out where it’s going now, we will have an idea of where they have decided to look. I’m sure Hux has an idea of where Ben ran to. He is a clever, sinister man, he has many ears and many eyes.”

Rey nods, and feels dread in her stomach.

“We will watch the cruiser closely, and see where it jumps to,” Leia continues. “After that, I think you should head out and start following its movements. I trust that you can be discreet and stealthy.”

Rey nods again, too overwhelmed to speak, she leans back, and pushes her uneaten dinner away. She wishes that she could just ask Ben, and that he would tell her.

No.

She wishes that she wasn’t in this situation. She wishes that she wasn’t bound to him across the stars, their destinies and fates forever intertwined. She resents that he is her responsibility, that this is being asked of her.

She wants to regret their history, but she can’t find it in herself to. She wants to deny that despite everything, she still cares for him.

As her feelings of resentment and anger begin to fester in her stomach, and she swears she feels him, floating around the edges of her mind.

 _Not now,_ she thinks, unsure if he is actually there, if he can actually hear her, but she does not feel his energy again. She closes her eyes and takes a deep, centering breath.

“Rey, are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah,” Rey replies weakly, suddenly feeling tired again. “I think I’ll go back to my room and lay down for the rest of the night. I’m sure I will feel back to normal tomorrow.”

Leia watches her closely. “It’s been a difficult day, I understand. Go and rest, but please, if you feel ill again like before, go to the infirmary.”

“I will,” Rey promises, and stands up from the table and her forgotten meal. “Thank you for inviting me for dinner. I hope we can do this again.”

“We will,” Leia smiles, and Rey turns and leaves the room.

* * *

 

When Rey gets back to her sleeping quarters a few minutes later, she is not surprised to find Ben, after feeling his presence in Leia’s quarters. She barely acknowledges him, standing the corner, looming in the dark.  She walks past him to the small chest of drawers that hold all of her belongings and opens the top drawer and pulling out her sleeping clothes.

She feels him watching her.

“I still don’t feel well; can we not do this now?” Rey asks, sighing and running her hand over her face.

“I didn’t choose to be here,” he reminds her, his voice still that same, low timbre that makes her shiver.

She looks at him finally before nodding and walking to the lavatory to change. Her sleep clothes are not much different than her every day shirt and pants, just looser, lighter. She waits a few minutes, leaning against the sink, in the hopes that when she walks back into her room, he will be gone.

But, when she cracks open the door, he is still there. And he is now sitting on her bed.

She tries to keep her face impassive as she walks out into the room. She stops near a small desk in her room, leaning against it and crossing her arms. Her eyes meet his.

“I’d like to go to bed,” she tells him, ignoring the double meaning in her words. He does not. There is a twitch at the corner of his lips but, surprisingly, he does not comment.

“What’s stopping you?” He asks, tilting his head to the side, a lock of his long hair shifting to fall over his eye. He’s wearing his familiar cowl, the hood pulled up, causing a shadow to cover the scarred side of his face.

“Well, you are, actually,” she retorts, pulling her arms tighter around her. She’s removed her bra band and is suddenly aware of how thin her sleep shirt is. “You’re sitting on my bed.”

His eyes widen a bit, and he glances around, unseeing. “Oh,” is all he says, and he makes no attempt to move.

She sighs, and walks to the bed, sitting near the pillows, pulling her legs up to her chest, leaving a generous distance between them. The silence stretches out between them like an ocean. She steels herself and turns her head to look at him.

She sees the face of the man she saw on his knees on Crait. He is vulnerable, he is lost. She wishes again that she was not bound to him this way, she does not want to see him laid bare before her. He asks and asks and it’s becoming harder for her to say no.

“Can I ask you something?” Her voice is soft, barely a whisper. He watches her for a moment, before he nods his head.

“Will you tell me what happened?”

His eyebrows crease; he doesn’t understand what event she speaks of.

“Hux,” is her only reply.

His eyes, so open and vulnerable a moment before, darken and narrow.

“Why? Do you want to hear all about how I was betrayed and hunted by my own men? Will it give you satisfaction?” His face is a sneer, his voice lethal.

“No.” She holds her ground, attempting to remain calm. “I just want to know what happened to you.” His face does not soften. “That night, that the Force connected us, and you were bleeding. It happened then, didn’t it?”

His lip twitches in anger and he looks away from her. “Yes.”

She is encouraged by his reply. “You looked so pale, so thin. What _happened_ , Ben?”

He flinches at her use of his name, his hands flexing, opening and closing on his knees. “What do you _think_ happened, Rey,” he spits her name like a curse, venomous. “I wasn’t able to spot a mutiny right under my own fucking nose.”

“You didn’t know?” Her voice is soft.

He exhales sharply through his nose. “Too late, I realized. Hux had been scheming, slowly turning every person, even down to the custodians, against me. My every plan, he executed with aplomb, the good little general, except he was undermining every order. Once I realized, once I saw, I knew I had no choice. I ran. They came after me, even Hux himself. I left my mark on him, though, forever.”

“What do you mean?”

He looks at her. “The holovids of him, declaring himself the Supreme Leader, supreme bastard,” he mutters the last part to himself, “They only show him from the waist up, haven’t your little brainy strategists noticed?” Rey shakes her head slowly. Ben laughs, low and menacing. “I’m sure he’s gotten it fixed up by now.” Rey waits.

“I removed his legs, below the knee. Made him fall to his knees before me, one final time.”

Rey gasps, her eyes widening at his cruelty.

“He deserved it, thinking he could take what was mine; sneering at me.”

He falls silent once more and Rey simply stares at him.

“I couldn’t even hold on to power for three months,” he breathes after a moment.

Before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s reaching for him, her hand on his forearm. He allows it for a heartbeat, before he shakes her hand away, roughly.

“This wouldn’t have happened if you’d come with me, if you’d taken my hand. We would have been unstoppable.” He looks at her again, his eyes dark, accusing.

She recoils from him as if he’s slapped her. “Me? You’re blaming me for this?” She stands from the bed, anger filling her, masking the hurt she feels. “This is exactly the reason why I’m glad I didn’t come with you to ‘build a new galaxy.’ You would have doomed me to the same fate as you, Supreme Leader.”

He’s on his feet now, too, his height menacing, imposing.

“No one could have touched us, if you hadn’t left. No one would have dared. We could have ruled the galaxy with our power and we could have changed it, made it better.”

Her laugh is cold, harsh. “Forcing others to comply to your will isn’t an improvement or a change from the life we all already live. I would never have agreed, no matter what you think.”

He advances closer, their chests brushing.

“Don’t you see?” He snarls at her. “Don’t you see that it wouldn’t have been like that? I wouldn’t have forced you to comply to anything. My ideas for the galaxy would have been better with you there. We would have been better because we would have been doing it together. Stronger. Hux wouldn’t have been able to poison the First Order with his treason. Not with you there. You would have seen it.”

She stares at him, bewildered, but unphased by his rage. “You never would have listened to me; your pride is a poison of its own. You’re so determined to be right! You wouldn’t even agree to stop killing my friends, you were willing to let them all die, let your mother die, when you offered me the galaxy. How did you ever imagine that that is what I would want? To join you? You wanted to leave me with no one else but you.”

He fists his hair and growls, deep in his chest. He steps back from her and begins pacing. “Why don’t you understand,” he pleads, his anger betraying his plea. “I just wanted you. I wanted to start over without the baggage of who I am weighing us down. The past is a disease that has infected me, I just wanted to leave it behind. For you.” His last words are harsh. They don’t hold the softness that they should.

“You don’t have to kill the past to let it go, Ben. You only need to kill it if you’re unwilling to let it go.”

Something breaks inside of him and he lunges toward her, his gloved hand coming to her throat, his eyes black.

“Maybe I should have killed you,” he seethes, “I wonder if I could kill you now, like this, and get you out of my head.” She’s once again unphased. She does not fear him the way others do. The way she should.

Her eyes narrow, and she leans into his hand. “Do it, if you want. But you will be killing the last chance you have. The last person who cares about you and wants to find you and make sure you’re safe. Go ahead, you bastard.”

He leans even closer to her face. “Don’t even bother coming to find me. It will be a waste of your time.”

“It’s not your choice to make,” she spits back in his face.

He does not move, he simply glares at her, his eyes moving between hers. She reaches her hand to his wrist, in an attempt to move his hand away, and the skin of her palm brushes the now exposed skin of his wrists. She gasps.

_A planet, with a black beach, black water. A small house sits on the edge of the shore. Ben is there, inside and it’s warm, a fire crackling in a stove, bathing the room in orange light. She is there, curled up on the bed, a blanket draped lazily over her legs, her back is exposed. It is bare. Her dark hair fans out over the pillow and she sees him stand from the chair, dressed only in loose pants, and he joins her. His mouth finds her shoulder._

_She is laughing, next to a lake, watching from the porch. The water is the purest blue. The grass is the greenest green. A small boy, with dark hair runs through the grass, laughing. His father chases him, but this time, his father is Ben. He is dressed in dark blue, his hair still long, but soft around his face. He calls the boys name, it’s too quiet to hear, but then she hears his squeal of laughter as he’s caught in Ben’s strong arms. He carries him home, it’s dinner time._

_Leia is there, frail but smiling, her grandson on her knee—_

Rey is forced back, flying to the corner of the room as Ben screams. She lands hard, the wind knocked out of her, and she looks up to find him staring, his eyes wild, chest heaving. He ignites his lightsaber with a roar, turning to swing it behind him. And he’s gone.

There is a long moment of silence before there is a sharp, urgent knock on her door, and whoever it is does not wait for a reply. Poe barges in to the room, his eyes frantic, searching, until they find Rey on the floor.

“What the hell is going on? Who are you shouting at?”

Rey takes a deep breath, and it hurts. So much for her secret, now. She will have to tell him.

And so much for not shouting at each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am currently knitting these two a "Get-Along" sweater that they will have to wear for one hour each day and talk calmly about their feelings. 
> 
> Love you all!  
> xox


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone!
> 
> I apologize for a long wait for this chapter. I’ve been having a hard time, and I felt for a while like I’d lost my nerve a bit with this story. It’s a short chapter, but I wanted to get something written so I could jump start myself into inspiration. I already have started the next chapter, and I felt like this one had a nice stopping place. 
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys it and I would love feedback on what you think.

Poe waits outside as the medical droid examines her. Her sore ribs are wrapped tightly with a bandage, and the droid tells her that two of them are broken. She’s to be on light duty and get lots of rest for the next few weeks, as there’s not much that can be done for her ribs at their current base.

The droid leaves and she pulls her shirt back on gingerly before making the difficult effort of pulling herself onto her bed. She grimaces and clutches her side as she maneuvers, silently promising to herself that she will dismember Ben the next time she sees him.

She winces again, but not at the pain in her ribs. Ben. She barely had time to process what had happened before Poe had found her, crumpled against the wall. The visions she saw, the images, the feelings. Her heart began to race, just remembering.

She shakes her head violently as the vivid image of him coming to bed with her flashes through her mind. Her face feels hot as Poe knocks on the door again and enters, followed closely by Finn and Rose. BB-8 beeps mournfully from the doorway.

“Are you all right?” Finn asks, moving toward the bed, and placing a hand on her shoulder. Rey nods absently, not really making eye contact with anyone. She feels raw, emotionally and physically. She’s afraid she will split apart at the seams if opens her mouth to speak.

“Will you please tell us what happened,” Poe asks, his eyebrows knitted in concern, his face serious.

“Is Leia coming?” Rey asks, her voice cracking.

Poe gives her a long look before he also sighs, nodding his head and running a hand through his hair. “She should be along any minute.”

“I’ll wait for her, then.”

She tries to shift herself into a more comfortable position. It’s late now, well past curfew, and she’s beyond exhausted. She doubts very much that she will be able to get any sleep now, unless the droid can spare some medicine to help her sleep tonight. As she struggles, there’s a sharp pain, radiating up into her lungs, causing her to cry out. Rose rushes forward and helps shift Rey into a better position to sleep in.

“Is that better?” Rose asks, her voice soft and her eyes kind. Rey grips herself around her middle, to help soothe the pain and nods to her.

“Yes, thank you,” Rey breathes, trying to catch her breath without breathing too deeply. “These aren’t my first broken ribs, but I hope that they are my last.”

Rose fusses with her blankets for a moment more, before she steps away. The room falls silent, and Rey closes her eyes to rest, trying to find peace and calm from the storm raging in her mind.

The things that she saw, they still reeled within her. She was almost thankful for the pain of her ribs, to ground her, to keep her mind from taking hold of the visions she saw when she brushed Ben’s skin.

Was that really her future? She couldn’t imagine that it was possible. The path that she was on now did not feel like it would end up with Ben and her—

No.

She stops herself from even entertaining the thought. That future was not possible.

She wonders, however, what Ben had seen. Did he see the same thing? Their last shared vision had shown each of them something vastly different, but still the same. They saw the same coin, just different sides. What version did he see?

Did he see Rey in his bed? Or did he see himself in hers?

And the boy, running in the grass. That part was almost too much for Rey to bear. Ben, happy and carefree chasing their son.

Their son.

There was no way that that was the future Rey was heading toward.

Rey is pulled from her reverie as she hears the familiar mechanical sounds of C-3PO moving down the hallway. Moments later, Leia appears in the doorway.

“Everyone out,” Leia barks at them as she enters. “I need to talk to Rey alone.” Threepio totters in frantically behind her, seemingly unable to keep the same pace as the older woman.

“But, General!” Poe begins to protest but is quickly silenced by the glare Leia directs at him.

“I need to talk to her. After that, she can tell you whatever she wants to, if anything. Am I understood?”

Poe nods, but Finn looks as if he is going to complain before Rose grabs him roughly by the arm and shoves him in the direction of the door.

“You wait outside too, Threepio,” Leia tells the protocol droid. He makes a sound of surprise, before leaving, grumbling under his breath about walking all the way down here.

Leia comes to sit next to Rey on her bed. She places a kind hand on her forearm, her eyes serious and concerned.

“What happened?”

Rey can no longer hold everything she has been feeling inside. As she looks at Leia, her only true confidante in all of this, she begins to cry.

The whole day, her headache, the first meeting with Ben, her mission to find him, the visions she saw, their fight, it all comes crashing out of her as she sobs into Leia’s shoulder. Her tears cause her ribs to throb, which only causes her to cry harder. She feels Leia’s hand running softly down her back, soothing her, calming her. She feels something, the gentlest of touches against her mind, and then it’s gone.

After a few minutes, her breathing evens out, and she pulls away from Leia, wiping at her face. She takes a deep, shuddering breath, wincing again as her ribs scream. She looks down at her lap.

“We fought,” Rey says quietly.

Leia makes a frustrated noise, but says nothing.

“When I came back from dinner, he was here. We talked, but it turned into yelling. He told me it was my fault that Hux mutinied against him.”

“He was never one for taking accountability for any of his actions,” Leia replies, a sharp edge to her voice. “What is his stellar reasoning on that one?”

“I wouldn’t go with him. I wouldn’t leave everyone behind to rule with him. He told me, if I had gone with him, Hux would have never been able to touch us.” Another suppressed sob makes Rey’s body tremble.

Leia sighs, rubbing her hand over her eyes.

“Well,” she looks at Rey and gives her a tight smile. “He’s not wrong about that. You two would be a powerful sight to behold.”

Rey says nothing, her eyes fixated on a small hole in her blanket.

“Is that how you got thrown?” Leia asks, gently, trying to keep Rey talking.

Rey shakes her head. “No. I—,“ She hesitates, remembering his hands around her throat, the way she goaded him. “No.” She wonders in that moment about what she should actually tell Leia.

She should tell her everything, but the visions are too intimate. Too scary to speak out loud. What would Leia think, if Rey told her how Ben had choked her, told her he wanted to kill her through the bond. She might tell Rey is was too dangerous for her to find him now. Maybe Rey should tell her, then she wouldn’t have to worry about locating him, about being near him. If she never finds him, those visions can never come to pass.

A small part of her protests. A small part of her wants the future she saw. She denies it.

“He was getting too close to me, yelling. I put my hand on his arm and our skin touched. Like back on Ahch-To, I saw a vision of the future. He saw it too, I’m not sure if it was the same vision, but he reacted. I got thrown into the wall.”

Leia leans forward. “What did you see, Rey?”

Rey looks into the soft brown eyes that she knows so well. She knows them from where they live on Ben’s face.

If she speaks them aloud, they will become real. She can deny she saw them; she doesn’t know what Ben saw, if he even saw the same thing as her. She could have seen something else, that didn’t involve them in a bed together. But, if she speaks them aloud to Leia, she can’t deny what her visions meant.

“I saw him and I,” she hesitates, looking away. She hopes that Leia understands what she has left unsaid. “Then, I saw us, by that same lake, the one you said was on Naboo. Ben was chasing a little boy, laughing,” Rey stops. It hurts more than she thought it would. She steels herself, it’s only a vision, something that may never come to pass. “And then, you. With that little boy on your knee.”

There is silence.

When she looks back into Leia’s eyes, she sees the glitter of tears building on the rims. Her face is so hard to read, a mask that she has perfected for her whole life. It betrays nothing, but her tears break through the cracks in her carefully constructed facade.

She leans forward, and her hands cup Rey’s face.

“You must go to him.”

Rey feels the panic bubble inside her again. “How? What if I can never find him?”

“The force, it showed you a future. It will help you, it will guide you to him.”

Rey shakes her head. “How can that future be possible?” Her own tears are threatening to fall again. “We are so cruel to each other. How can we ever turn into those people that I saw? How can he be that man, happy and carefree?”

Leia stands, and Rey can tell she is tired. She looks down at her sadly.

“I don’t know, Rey.”

She turns to walk toward the door. When she reaches it, she turns to face Rey once more.

“Do you still want to do this? Do you still want to leave and find him?”

Rey grips her ribs, tightening her arm around her middle absently, as if protecting herself. She nods.

“Yes. I will still go.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of Leia’s mouth. “I’ll send the droid back to give you something to help you sleep. You can talk to the others in the morning.”

She exits, and within moments, the medical droid bustles back in, brandishing a syringe that makes Rey cower.

After it is gone, Rey settles back into her bed, relaxed and floating. The pain in her ribs is a dull ache, and she feels warm all over. The heavy fog of sleep starts to cover her, and just as she’s about to drift away, she feels it again, a soft touch, gentle, tender, just on the edges of her mind. She opens to it, too comfortable and sleepy to resist. Deep down she knows what it is, who it is, but it feels too nice and familiar. She hums in contentment as she feels it wrap around her. It whispers, “I’m sorry.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will start advancing the plot a little better. Maybe some calm talking???? 
> 
> As always, I love you all!  
> Xox


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Give me a boost over heaven's gate  
> 'Cause everything else is a substitute for your love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday!
> 
> This chapter fought with me, but in a good way. I wrote a whole part with an elaborate back story about Lieutenant Connix knowing Ben prior to the events of TFA but it didn’t seem to quite go, so I ended up rewriting the whole second act. It still feels a bit strange, but I hope that it works! Thank you for all of your kind and encouraging words on the last chapter, it means so much to me 
> 
> We can thank the Rian Johnson interview for the inspiration for part of this chapter. Rewatching the elevator scene makes me even warmer inside now.

* * *

When Rey wakes, everything is foggy. She feels as if she’s awoken under water, floating slowly toward the surface, waiting for her first breath of cool, fresh air. She isn’t panicked or rushed, she just glides up, up, up, until she sees the light shining just above the surface. She doesn’t break through just yet.

She slowly becomes aware of her body. It hurts. But, not too bad. It feels like it’s hurting on someone else’s body. Her back, her shoulders, they both ache in a deep way, and she’s aware that when she rises to the surface of the water, it will all hurt a lot more. Too much.

She feels the warm sun above her, calling her. It’s calling for her to come up, and she’s tempted. She feels something above her that calls to her, more than the light. It’s warm, so warm, deep inside of her and the tug to the surface becomes too strong. She opens her eyes.

She does not move. She’s aware of the pain in her body, and she is cognizant that it will hurt if she tries anything. She waits, breathing smoothly in and out, waiting for the courage to try to even lift an arm. There’s already a dull pulsing in the area if her broken ribs that she’s not looking forward to encountering just yet. Her head is still foggy, the medicine still lingering.

She rolls her head to the side, first to look at the wall. That doesn’t hurt too much, and she’s relieved. She tries her luck in the other direction. She gasps.

But not in pain.

Slumped in the corner, very near her bed, is Ben. His head is drooped against his shoulder, his hands resting in his lap. His lips are parted in sleep.

He is sitting directly below the spot on the wall where he had sent Rey flying last night.

She watches the steady rise and fall of his chest as her emotions slowly manifest at the sight before her.

She’s angry with him. Furious might be a better word. If she knew that she wouldn’t be in agony because of her ribs, she might just jump up and club him across the head with something. She doesn’t forget her promise to herself to dismember him on their next meeting. But her pain makes her patient.

Angry as she is, she can’t help but be a little warmed by his presence this morning. She knows that he came to her as she was falling asleep, remembers his softly spoken apology in her ear. What he was sorry for, she’s not sure, she was too content from the medicine the medical droid gave her to stay awake. She doubted he wanted to speak to her anyway.

She sighs and looks back up at the ceiling. What will they say to each other when he wakes up? Will they yell more about last night? She doesn’t feel like she has the energy to fight this morning. Will they even dare to speak about what they saw? Her mind is made up about finding him, but now a new dread fills her stomach. But, she wonders, is it dread? Her stomach sinks at the thought of being alone with him, alone after seeing them together with so much exposed skin. It scares her, but maybe it’s not dread, she reasons with herself.

Anticipation.

If she finds him, it seems that it will be an inevitability. She still can’t imagine how, though. But, a small, nagging thought pesters her from the back of her mind.

She remembers the looks he has given her.

_Just you._

She had been so angry that day, as he materialized in front of her, but it did not escape her notice how he spoke to her. Not his usual rough screaming, or menacing sneer, it had been soft, reverent.

And when she had been scared, after the cave of mirrors, he told her that she wasn’t alone. His face, warmed by the firelight between them, had shown her a tenderness that she never thought possible. That had been the look that had sent her to find him before. The vision that followed only solidified what she knew: the light in him called to her, called for her help. So she gave it.

In the elevator.

Her heart stutters as she remembers the elevator. As she spoke to him, the softness in his eyes, how gentle his voice was, just for her. Maybe it was an inevitability, she was just fighting the truth. She had been on her knees in front of him, waiting for his cruel hand to deliver her death. But he didn’t give it. He killed his master. He chose the power of the galaxy over her.

“I killed Snoke for _you_.”

She’s startled by his voice, and looks at him in alarm. His face is passive, but his eyes burn. She knows that they only burn like that for her.

“What?” She asks, confused.

“Your thoughts are quite loud when you think no one is listening.”

“Stay out of my head,” she snaps, narrowing her eyes at him.

He stands, moving to sit on a chair next to her bed so he can see her better. She can still see the sleep in his eyes.

“I didn’t have to look,” he murmurs, gazing down at her. “Like I said, it’s very loud in there.”

Her heart is racing, and she’s trying to keep her breaths shallow to avoid disturbing her ribs.

“How much did you... hear?”

He runs a hand over his face. He’s not wearing his gloves. “I heard enough.”

Rey does not answer, she doesn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t kill Snoke for power.” His voice is low and rough. He truly sounds like he is a galaxy away. “I killed him for you. I knew, before we stepped into that throne room, that I would kill him. I didn’t know how, but I knew that I would do it. For you. Because you came to me. Because of what I saw. And then, what he was doing to you, what he was taking.” He shakes his head, his eyes on the floor. “I saw my chance.”

Rey’s eyes search his face, confusion settling between her eyebrows. Her whole memory of that day suddenly seems flipped, tilted, distorted. The cold eyes she remembers seem warmer now, more earnest, more inviting. She feels the truth in his words.

“Why?” She can barely find her voice to ask the question.

He looks at her, sad, remorseful. She can feel that there is so much that he is sorry for. It makes her chest ache.

“You are the only one that truly understands me. Even in my anger, in my rage, you see. You see what I don’t. You make me feel less alone, whenever we connect. It reminds me of that night. We aren’t alone when we have each other,” he sighs. “When we had each other.”

“We still do,” Rey murmurs, surprising herself. “The force has been connecting us a lot in the past two days.” He closes his eyes as if he is in pain at her words. “Maybe it’s trying to tell us something,” she finishes.

He rubs his fingers through his hair. “It’s been telling us a lot. We are both too proud to listen.”

She bristles, at his accusation of pride, but she allows it, too tired to fight. It hurts to admit, but he’s probably right.

His eyes meet hers, and something passes, unspoken between them.

She dares to reach up slowly, moving to brush the skin of the red scar, her scar, that marks his face. He watches her fingers as they draw nearer, and leans closer, ever so slightly, eager for contact. As their bare skin touches, there is no jolt, no vision, and she is relieved. She doesn’t think that either of them could handle another glance at their shared future.

She wants to touch more, drawn to him like a moth to flame. She longs to flatten her hand against the warm skin of his cheek, but he’s not close enough. If she moves, shifts any closer, her ribs will scream.

Reading her thoughts, he shifts from the chair to the edge of her bed. In his haste to move however, he jostles the bed, causing her inhale sharply and pinch her eyes shut.

“Are you all right?” He asks, his voice hushed, desperate.

She nods after a moment. “Just two broken ribs.”

She opens her eyes and looks at him again, and he looks as if he’s in the same amount of pain that she is. His head falls into his hands.

“I’m so sorry,” he groans, his hands fisting in his hair. “I just, what I saw, I couldn’t—“ he struggles with his words, and then rips his head away from his hands to look down at her, his eyes wild.

She should feel angrier at him, he had lashed out at her, once again, in his anger.

“No, no. I wasn’t angry at you,” he urges. “I just didn’t want to see.”

Her eyes narrow. “You were angry. We were both very angry.” She thinks of his hands on her throat, of her teeth snapping at him, goading him.

He winces. “But, not about that. Seeing what I saw, it hurts like an open, festering wound. I couldn’t bear it,” his voice is a whisper as he finishes.

She sighs, reaching her hand up to his face once more. She brushes a hair from his temple, and slides her palm down his marred cheek. He leans into her touch. The bond spreads warmly down her arm, into her stomach. It soothes the pain in her body. “Tell me what you saw.”

His eyes plead with her. “I saw what you saw,” he hedges.

“Are you sure?”

He looks away and her hand falls from his face. She feels cold. Her hand comes across his lap, finding his hand and, in a moment of madness that is consistent with the mood this morning, she laces her fingers with his. His eyes fall to their hands and he licks his lips.

“Ben,” she calls his eyes back to hers. When he finally looks at her, brown meeting hazel, she allows the visions to replay, projecting them into his mind. He gasps, squeezing her hand too tightly. She doesn’t protest. He whimpers, almost as if seeing the visions are actually painful, as they reel through his mind.

“Is this our future?” Rey asks, her voice small, but she’s unable to keep the disbelief out of her voice. When the image of Leia appears to him once more, he groans, pushing back into her mind. She gasps as she sees his version, different, but the same. She sees herself on the bed, skin bare, but there’s more. She sees, feels his hands on her, tender and delicate. Reverent. She sees her own smile, warm and blinding. For him.

There’s laughter as he chases his son, and the warmth blooms inside of her as she feels what he feels, but the conflict inside of him crushes her. She pulls away from his thoughts, putting up and wall and pushing him out.

“How can it be?” He asks, the sound barely a whisper.

Rey takes a deep breath and pushes herself into a sitting position. She grunts, masking her pain, ignoring it. He drops her hand and reaches forward to steady her. She leans closer to him, closer than she has ever dared.

“Tell me where you are. Let me find you, let me help you.”

He looks a her for a long moment. He’s tempted, and he leans closer to her.

“I’ve already put you in too much danger. The First Order—“

“They hunt us every day. I am in the same danger here as I would be, out in the galaxy, looking for you.”

He reaches for her, cupping his hand on her face, his finger tips dancing over the hairs at the base of her neck. A stark difference than his touch last night.

“I’ve hurt you. I am a danger to you.”

She shakes her head. “No. We will figure it out. We have to, Ben.” She thinks once more of his hands on her skin, his lips. She wants it more than she will freely admit, even to herself.

“Rey,” he breathes, his face is too close. Her eyes look down at his lips.

“Please,” she pleads. Her breath is hot against his mouth. “Tell me.”

As he opens his mouth, to tell her his location or to kiss her, she doesn’t know which, the door to her room opens, revealing the medical droid, followed closely by Rose and Lieutenant Connix.

Rey gasps and then groans as Ben vanishes, hanging her head and punching her fist into the mattress. In the absence of the bond and the soothing balm of his touch, the pain in her ribs returns, each breath sharp.

“Rey!” Rose calls, rushing her side. “Why did you try to get up by yourself!”

Rey closes her eyes and is mildly relieved. Her groan of frustration must have sounded like a groan of pain, and she’s glad. She wonders how else she could have explained the look on her face when they had walked in the door. The anticipation of his lips on hers, and being so close to him revealing where he was, only to have it snatched away.

She’s not sure what she’s more disappointed about.

 

* * *

 

After being checked over once more by the droid, she is given a lower dose of the pain medicine that was administered to her last night, just enough to take the edge off of her pain and allow her to function. Rose and Connix help her dress, and ask her if she feels up to heading to the mess hall to meet Finn and Poe. With the medicine in her system, she feels better and she agrees; she wants to get out of this room and the feelings that live here, just for a little while.

“Good,” Rose smiles. “The two of them have been restless, wondering what happened last night.”

“Don’t act like you aren’t dying to know, too,” Connix laughs and Rose shoots her a look.

The walk to the mess hall is slow, but Rey is proud of herself when she makes it there. The medicine is helping, and the pain is a dull ache. She has to remember not to move or turn too fast, because the pain isn’t really gone, just sleeping below the surface.

When she enters, she hears Finn’s voice, calling from across the room.

“Rey!” He’s excited, relieved. She smiles at him as she approaches. When he reaches her, he offers his hand to help her to the table where Poe sits.

“I’m okay, Finn. I can do it myself.”

He stays close, and they all walk to join Poe.

Poe is looking at her with an expression that she doesn’t quite understand. He looks concerned, but also... suspicious? She can’t figure it out.

They sit, and Finn pushes a plate of rations toward her. It hardly looks appetizing, but she hasn’t eaten properly in nearly two days, and she’s starving. She practically shovels the rations into her mouth.

“So, will you tell us what happened, Rey?” Finn asks, looking at her eagerly.

Rey hesitates, setting her fork down and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand.

She nods. “We should probably go somewhere less... open. I don’t think the General would like a lot of people to know.”

“There’s a conference room down the hall,” Connix tells them.

“Let’s go,” Finn says, standing quickly. Rey laughs.

“Slow down, Finn. I’m going to tell you, no need to rush.”

She lifts herself slowly from the bench, and Poe offers his hand which she takes gratefully. Together they leave the mess hall, walking slowly to keep pace with Rey and make the short walk to the empty conference room. They all sit and look expectantly at Rey.

She swallows thickly, feeling put on the spot.

“I, uh—“ she hesitates, unsure of how to begin. She dreads the reaction that she knows she will receive. She glances at each of their eager faces, and knows that their opinion of her is about to change. “I have a force bond,” she takes a breath, “with Kylo Ren.”

There’s silence. Then they are all speaking at once.

“A force bond?” Connix asks.

“KYLO REN!?” Finn and Poe shout simultaneously.

“Gross,” Rose breathes and it makes Rey smile.

Rey puts her hands up to quiet their onslaught, but Poe can’t help himself.

“Does he know where we are? Has he tried to hurt you before?”

Rey shakes her head. “Last night was an... accident. And no, we can’t really see each other’s location. We just see each other. We can feel each other’s thoughts and emotions, though.”

“Gross,” Rose repeats.

“How long has this been going on?” Finn looks concerned and a bit jealous. Rose shoots him an annoyed look.

Rey sighs, and begins to tell them everything, detailing the beginnings of their bond on Ahch-to, being forged together by Snoke through the force, to her boarding the _Supremacy_. She tells them of their fight after Snoke’s death. She edits the events, keeping her feelings secret, keeping the true intimacy of their connection on the _Supremacy_ to herself.

“How did you get away?” Finn asks, awestruck. Poe is still regarding her strangely.

“He asked me to join him. I refused, and we fought for the lightsaber. That’s how it broke,” she finishes sadly.

“You’re still connected, though,” Poe inquires.

Rey nods. “Yes. Just a handful of times since Crait. I tried to ignore him in the beginning, but I saw him the night Hux staged his coup. Since then, I’ve seen him a few more times, and last night we fought.”

“What did you fight about?” Poe asks.

“Well,” she rubs her neck, feeling uneasy. “He blames me for what happened with the First Order. He thinks that if I had joined him, Hux wouldn’t have been able to stage a coup.”

“Like you’d ever join them!” Finn laughs but Rey says nothing.

“You considered it, didn’t you?” Poe’s voice is quiet, calm. Rey simply looks at him, unsure of how to answer. But her silence is it’s own answer.

“Rey?” Finn looks between Poe and her, his face worried. “You didn’t want to, did you?”

She does not take her eyes off of Poe when she answers.

“It’s not that simple.”

“You have feelings for him,” Poe concludes, a look of disgust coloring his features.

“Had,” she lies, holding Poe’s gaze. It’s a lie to him and it is a lie to herself. “I thought that he would turn, I thought that he would come to the light. He showed me how wrong I was. I don’t think it’s possible to turn him back to the light. But, still, Leia has asked me to try to find him.”

No one says anything, and after a moment, Poe stands abruptly. He paces the length of the table, his hand roughly scrubbing against his hair. “Why does she want to find him?” His voice is exasperated.

Rey looks away, fixing her eyes on her hands.

“She believes he’s the key to bringing down the First Order. They’ve betrayed him and he knows their secrets. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”

Poe scoffs. “If anything, we should help the First Order find him and kill _him_.”

“He’s not a threat,” Rey tries to reason calmly. “He has no support, he’s in hiding, Poe.”

He takes a few steps closer to her. “Why are you defending him?”

“I’m not,” Rey counters, trying not to should defensive but her hackles are up. “You know that Leia is right. We are on the run, we have no resources, no means of taking Hux out. Regardless of what you think, he is our best chance.”

There is a tense silence as Poe and Rey stare each other down.

“But Rey, he threw you against a wall! He broke your ribs,” Finn’s voice is concerned.

Rey sighs. “I know you don’t understand,” she looks around at them, looking at all their concerned and angry faces. “But, the General wants me to look for him and try to sway him to help us.”

“It’s dangerous. We will go with you, make sure that he doesn’t hurt you,” Finn offers.

Rey shakes her head sadly. “Do you think that he will come quietly if we all show up?”

“We don’t care if he comes quietly. We will force him.”

Rey laughs without humor. “He is powerful and dangerous. He won’t hurt me, but he will hurt you.”

Poe scoffs. “He sounds like the poster child of hope for the Resistance.”

“We just want his help. They turned on him, he wants to see their destruction just as much as we do. Maybe more. I doubt helping the Resistance would be his motivation. It would be a means to an end.”

“And then what?” Poe asks. “He helps us and then we send him on his merry way? To rebuild another empire from the ashes?”

“I don’t know what happens after,” Rey answers, her voice quiet. “I guess we will do what we must, when it’s over.”

Poe softens, and sighs. “I won’t go with you. I won’t have any part of this.”

“I’m not asking for help. I don’t want anyone in danger. I will go alone, I’ll be safe. I’ve been fending for myself for my whole life. He won’t hurt me,” she assures once more.

Finn goes to protest, but Rose talks over him. “When will you leave, Rey?” Her voice is kind, and she glares at the two men.

Rey sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t know where he is, the galaxy is large, with lots of places for him to hide.”

“Why don’t you just ask him through your mind... thing?” Finn asks, pulling a face.

“He won’t tell me.”

“So, are you just going to guess and start looking? This doesn’t seem like a great plan,” Poe rolls his eyes.

“Remember the last time you doubted me, Dameron?” Leia’s low voice comes from the doorway, and Poe is sobered immediately.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replies softly.

She enters slowly, not taking her eyes off of Poe until she reaches Rey.

“How are you feeling?” Leia ask, her eyes warming as she turns her gaze to Rey.

“I’m okay, just sore.”

Leia nods. “If you feel up to it, we can talk after the afternoon briefings. I have some information for you.”

“Okay, I will.”

Leia looks back at Poe. “I also remember what happened when I kept things from you. I believe the word ‘reckless’ sums it up, don’t you?” Her gaze is still stern, but there is a touch of humor in her voice.

Poe nods, not quite meeting her gaze.

“Meet me in the war room before the briefing, I will explain more then.” She tilts her to try to catch his eye. “I promise to keep you in the loop this time, Commander.”

He nods and Leia smiles at all of them before exiting once more. Poe drops down into a chair, his body heavy.

Finn turns back to Rey. “Are you really sure about this? I can’t imagine him wanting to help us, why would he even want to risk it?”

“I don’t know, but we have to at least try. He’s our best chance. He has nothing to lose; he already has nothing.”

“He has very little to gain,” Connix says, her voice harsh. “If he comes here, regardless of his help, he will be put on trail for his crimes. He deserves a fate worse than death.”

Rey says nothing. She knows that Connix is right. He deserves punishment for what he has done to the galaxy, but she hopes that his life can be spared.

She shakes her head. How can her opinion of him have changed so much? He’s still a monster, cruel and angry. But, the vision of their future plays in her head once more. She doesn’t know why, but the force showed them this future for a reason. There must be a way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Calm talking! Mission accomplished. 
> 
> And I love Poe. I hope I do him justice, he’s a bit hard for me to write. I don’t know really how he would feel about all of this, but he’s not an explosive to anger type, really, just passionate. But, I like to think he will come around. 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think! I’m going to try for another chapter on Thursday. 
> 
> Xox


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday!
> 
> So, I finally know where our train is going. It's taken me ahem, six chapters, but I think I'm finally there. This story will likely be 13-15 chapters, and I hope this journey has been and will be one that you enjoy. I've struggled a bit, which I'm sure a few of you have noticed. But, I've loved every comment and kudos and bookmark on this story.

Supreme Leader Armitage Hux sits proud on his throne, his gloved fingers tracing the shining black material of the armrest. He glances around  _his_ throne room, one he’s earned through patience and conquest.

He’s finally restored the First Order to the glory of its last true Supreme Leader, Snoke, eradicating the usurper Kylo Ren. Hux smiles as he thinks of Ren, bleeding and on the run after the perfect execution of his plan.

Well, nearly perfect. Ren has escaped and was still alive, somewhere. But, even now, as his ship heads deep into the Core towards Coruscant, his men are hunting him. Hux won’t rest until Ren’s body lay at his feet in this very throne room. He smiles once more at the thought.

He reaches his hand to the side, picking up a glass of wine. As he takes a sip, there is the warning alarm that indicates the elevator to the throne room is ascending. Hux leans back, crossing his cybernetic legs, one over the other, and waits for his visitor.

The doors open, revealing General Trestle. Hux doesn’t know how to feel about his new General; he does well enough, but he will never be as good as he was when he commanded the First Order. Hux smirks to himself and takes another sip of his wine as the man approaches.

The General comes to a stop in front of Hux, and lowers himself to one knee, bowing his head.

“Supreme Leader,” he says reverently. Hux rolls his eyes. He’s snively, this one.

“General, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Supreme Leader, we are on course for Coruscant and will arrive in approximately 3 standard hours.”

Hux stands and steps down off the dais carefully. Damn these legs that Ren cursed him with.

“Excellent, General. I do hope you haven’t come all the way up here to tell me just this.”

The General shakes his head. “No, Supreme Leader. We have just gotten a report from Gamma squadron that I think would interest you.”

Hux’s eyebrows go up.  _Gamma squadron. Already?_ He licks his lips in anticipation.

“Yes, General please continue.”

Trestle takes a deep breath, “They have located Ren’s TIE  _Silencer_ , crashed on the surface of Felucia. The ejector has not been deployed, the parachute still intact.”

Hux takes a few purposeful strides toward him. “And?” He can barely contain himself.

The General reaches up, tugging slightly at his collar. “There was, unfortunately, no sign of Ren. No body, not even a scrap of cloth in the wreckage. They searched a perimeter in case he was thrown from the craft during freefall but came up with nothing.”

Hux, still holding his glass, grips it tightly, attempting to keep his composure. He had been so close to descending upon Coruscant with a true victory.

“Tell them to search the quadrant. Every planet. No matter how desolate or run down. He is alive, we won’t be rid of that scum so easily, General. Send another squadron to assist. We won’t need all these men while we are on Coruscant. You’re dismissed.”

Trestle bows his head once more. “I will deploy the men immediately, Supreme Leader.”

The General rises and quickly makes his way back to the elevator.

Hux watches him go, contempt all over his face. He takes a deep breath and drains the rest of his wine. He looks at the empty glass for a moment before he hurls it across the room, a shout of rage filling the silence. The glass shatters against the black tile floor with a clatter. His guards do not even flinch.

He moves back towards this throne, ascending the dais slowly, ignoring his aching legs, unused to carrying the weight of the cybernetics and lowers himself heavily back into the chair. He snaps his fingers and a droid appears, and a fresh goblet full of wine is placed into his hand. Resting his head against the high obsidian back, he glances toward to open glass of the ceiling, watching as the stars drift around him. His temper calming, he takes a sip of his wine.

He would have everything he had worked for, had killed for, soon enough. His men would find Ren and then the galaxy would be truly his to command. There would be no one to challenge him and he would be free to find what was left of the Resistance and snuff them out once and for all.

 

* * *

 

Rey had hoped to escape back to her room after lunch, but as the others made their way to the war room for the briefing, she couldn’t find an excuse to break away.

Inside, Finn finds the most comfortable chair for her and she’s grateful; the medicine has begun to wear off and the discomfort is hard to ignore. She smiles thankfully at him.

The meeting is short, just a rehash of the information from yesterday. Leia assures them, despite no new real information, that a plan will be set into motion very soon that will lead them to more answers.

As she adjourns the group, Rey remains where she is. When the room is empty, Leia moves to sit in front of Rey, pulling up her own comfortable looking arm chair, a few data pads in her hand.

“How long did the droid tell you that you needed to rest?” Leia asks, looking at Rey with a serious expression.

“He said it might take up to six weeks to heal.”

Leia nods, and hands Rey a data pad. “Do you think you could handle it if I asked you to leave within the next few days?”

Rey’s eyes widen at Leia before she glances down at the information in front of her.

“The First Order has deployed a squadron to the Tion Cluster. We just received word this morning that the Star Destroyer we had been watching made the jump and there’s rumors that there is another squadron on the way. I doubt they are just searching without purpose, they must have found something.”

Rey nods absently, looking over the information on the pad.

Leia leans forward, resting her hand on Rey’s arm. “Rest for a few days, and then I must ask you to go. It’s not far from here, you can give them a few days head start, but I don’t want the trail to go cold.”

“What planets are even in the Tion Cluster?” Rey asks, unfamiliar with that region of space. Truth be told, she is unfamiliar with most regions of space.

“None that are worth visiting,” replies, her voice dry. “Most of the planets are desolate and forgotten, having been run dry of their resources in the days of the Empire. Perhaps that’s why Ben has run there, hoping to disappear.”

And disappear he had.

“Have you heard from him again?” Leia asks, and Rey can tell that she’s trying to keep the eagerness from her voice.

Rey hesitates. She is unsure if she should tell Leia about his visit this morning; something about it feels like it should be a secret. How close his lips had been to hers, he had been so close to telling her where he was. She shakes her head.

She’s beginning to keep more things a secret from Leia than she’s telling her.

“I have a feeling that I won’t be seeing him, at least not for a few days.”

Leia looks at her for a long moment and then nods. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe it is for the best that you are separated for a while. Keep the mission on course. The more that you fight, the harder it will be to find him.”

Rey looks away from Leia and nods her head solemnly. She feels a small twitch of something, regret in her mind.

“How are you feeling, now that you’ve told the others? I get the feeling that it didn’t go very smoothly?” Leia raises an eyebrow at Rey. She sighs.

“It’s okay, I guess. I didn’t expect anyone to understand. I doubt anyone can, even you,” Rey adds, but winces a bit at the admission.

“It’s all right,” Leia says, “I want to understand, but I do admit that it’s hard. The man that is Kylo Ren is not my son. But, somehow you still see him as Ben Solo, even though you never knew him. That’s what I believe when I dream of him coming home.”

Rey looks away. This feels like a conversation that is too intimate to be having with his mother. There is nothing illicit in their bond, well there wasn’t before this morning, but it still feels like she’s sharing something that is meant for only them.

“They are the same. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. The light inside of him, the light that still fights within him, that is Ben Solo. He has tried everything to let it go, he thinks Ben Solo was weak. He denies it, but he tries too hard to get away from it. Kylo Ren is nothing but a façade that covers up who he truly is, like he is trapped inside his own body. Kylo Ren killed Han to try to kill what was left of Ben Solo. It only made it worse.”

Rey looks back at Leia and sees heartbreak on her face. Leia shakes her head, almost in wonder. “You do care for him, don’t you?” Her voice is barely a whisper.

Rey shrugs, uncomfortable at being asked this question again today. Was it that obvious? “I only understand him, through the connection. We share loneliness. We have both longed for a purpose, for belonging.” She tries to deflect the question. Coming to terms with her feelings is a terrifying prospect in the face of her mission. Admitting it would only cloud her judgement.

At least that’s what she continues to tell herself.

In reality, the feelings she has are getting harder and harder to ignore. The others are noticing, how she speaks of him, and she has been fighting with the admission that she knows in her heart. She does have feelings for him, and she has been wearing a mask of her own since she left him alive and unconscious on the _Supremacy_. She's been too afraid to admit it, because of what had passed between them, such hope followed but heartbreak and disappointment. Neither had been able to live up to the other's expectations. But, somehow she still wanted to be near him, to find his light and draw it out with her own. This mission to bring him back isn’t just at Leia’s insistence, but hers as well. She could have easily said no, to tell Leia that she wouldn’t do it, that he was beyond saving. Leia would have been disappointed, but she would have come to her with a new plan that would have been just as good. But, Rey wants this task; she’d agreed because she wants to find him and bring him home, to offer him what she denied him. The visions of their future burn through her very soul and hoping that they can become a reality terrifies her but excite her all the same.

 _You must admit it to herself before you leave_ , she tells herself. It’s the only way. Leia was right, and so was Ben. The force was telling her something, the force was going to guide her to him. It was her destiny to return him to the light so that he would bring down the First Order. A terror in the galaxy that he’d help create, and he was to help destroy it.

“When should I leave,” she asks Leia, attempting to change the subject. Leia seems to be lost in her own thoughts, and her eyes slide back into focus on Rey’s face. Something has changed in her eye.

“Rest and allow your ribs a few days to heal. I wouldn’t suggest waiting more than two days, however. Even if the First Order searches a planet, it doesn’t mean that they will find him. He is strong in the force and stronger still in the darkside. He can hide if he really wants to. But, not from you. Let’s not let him get too far ahead of us. And you won’t be taking the Falcon. It’s too recognizable; you might as well fly though the Tion Cluster with a flashing sign.”

Rey nods, and slowly something occurs to her.

“What should I do if I do find him?”

All this talk about finding him and bringing him home, the reality of doing it seems abstract to Rey.

Leia is quiet for a moment as she regards her. “You will have to hope that he has trust in you,” and she hands Rey a second data pad.

* * *

 

The next few days are quiet, and she does not connect to Ben as she prepares for her mission. She’s relieved, keeping her thoughts hidden can be difficult, and she feels too open to be near him now.

She tells the others about her departure, and they all seem worried, apprehensive. Finn once more offers to come with her for back up. She had smiled and hugged him, telling him not to worry, that she will be fine and that she will be home soon. Poe, on the other hand, tries to get her to reconsider. He’d pulled her to the side, away from the others, and implored her to find a different way.

_“I think this is a mistake, Rey.”_

_She tries not be annoyed with him, but what he is implying isn’t only questioning Rey’s abilities, but Leia’s._

_“I know what I’m doing, Poe, it’s all right.”_

_But, his eyes were sad. “If you must kill him, would you? Would you be willing to kill him to spare your own life? What about the lives of all of us?”_

_This startles Rey. “My mission is to bring him home.”_

_Poe steps closer, his voice dropping. “But, what if you can’t? Rey, how can you know what he won’t betray you?”_

_Something sparks inside of Rey. “He won’t.” And she believes it, with everything in her._

_Poe had just looked at her, with those same sad eyes ruining his handsome face._

_“I want you to be right. I just wish there was another way.”_

As she packs the last of her things, the night before her departure, she thinks of what Poe said. She knows that he is just worried, having been on the receiving end of Kylo Ren and his interrogation tactics. But, she can’t help but wonder about his question. If she had to, could she kill him? Her newly admitted feelings scream in protest, but the seemingly rational part of her protests as well. She had left him, there on the floor of the _Supremacy_ when she had her chance to end the war, but she hadn’t. She’d run. She had allowed him to live and he hunted them to Crait.

 _I killed Snoke for you_. She hears the echo of his words.

Sighing, she packs away rations and clothes but, she hesitates over the broken pieces of her lightsaber. She wonders if she should even pack it; it doesn’t work, and she hasn’t heard the call of the kyber crystal in weeks. Its hum is still present, however faint, and she still holds on to hope that it might one day be mended.

 _Maybe Ben would help you_ , she muses to herself, but quickly rejects the idea. The very idea of them, sitting together and meditating over a lightsaber they had fought over and broken seems preposterous. But, she has no idea where to even begin otherwise. She’d tried mediating, and the hum grew stronger, more familiar, but it when it came to fixing it, she was lost. The force had only taken her so far, she didn’t know where to go to complete it and bring it back to life. There was no one to teach her except Ben. This lightsaber had been his before her, he had not crafted his own until that horrible thing he carried now. She wasn’t sure that she could trust his help, not when she’d seen the unstable results of his attempt. But, the blade reflected its master. Imbalanced, volatile. Hers would be better.

She tucks the pieces inside her rucksack, along with another homing beacon from Leia. Her thumb runs over the smooth azure glass, and the stops to worry over the small switch that has been added to the side before she places in the outer pocket. She thinks back to Leia’s words when she gave it to her, after detailing her plan for Rey. _You’ll know when to use it. Trust yourself and trust him._

Sitting down on her bed, her palm pressed to her ribs, still sore but manageable, she hopes that she will be able to know when the time is right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally have a plan, and so does Leia. Praise be.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends!
> 
> This is my first time writing from Ben's POV. I've been finding it hard to advance the story from Rey's POV, so I decided to dabble and I found that I really enjoy writing him. This was one of the easier chapters for me to write, once I decided to change to him. I'd been struggling on how to get here, with Rey as the narrator, so I hope it this change was the right thing to do. I hope everyone enjoys it! Thank you as always for all of the encouraging words and comments and bookmarks and everything. The support of this story and my other story always makes me smile when things aren't easy IRL. I love you all and I appreciate feedback, always.

It’s raining.

That’s all it seems to do here.

Ben sighs as he looks up at the gray, dreary sky; he imagines that it’s weeping for him.

He’s lost track of how long he’s been here, how long he’s been running. It feels like years, if he’s being honest, years on this planet where it rains and it’s too humid, but everything seems like it’s dead. The sands are black, and the skies are gray. He can’t remember the last time that he saw the sun shine though the clouds. That might be why he always feels like he’s in such a foul mood.

He’s spent his entire life in a foul mood.

He sighs again as he heaves his catch onto his shoulder and sets off toward the small cabin that he’s decided to call home. It’s not much, but it’s a dry and warm at night with a fire lit, when the damp seeps into his bones when he tries to sleep. When he’d arrived on this planet, however long ago it was, he’d spent days hiding and searching for a suitable place to lay low for a while. This planet was a long-forgotten wasteland, torn apart by years of warfare, within itself and from the Empire. In truth, he’d chose it because of all of it’s history of the Sith, and there were rumors of Sith and Jedi temples alike hidden somewhere in it’s depths. He’d figured that while he was trying to avoid being found, he would try to explore and find a lost Sith temple while he was at it. So far, he’d been unsuccessful.

He couldn’t venture far, to avoid suspicion. There were very few settlements left on the planet, but his luck was such that if he moved too close to anyone, he was sure that he would be found out.

He’d found this abandoned fishing cabin, here on the black sand shores and he’d staked it out, watching and waiting to see if anyone returned here. No one ever did. He waited for nearly a week, hiding in his ship, which he’d hidden in a cave, before he decided that it was safe for him to move in, and so far, no one had found him.

Not even Rey.

He grunts as he dropps the makeshift net in front of his door and goes inside to dry off. He’d make himself dinner later, after he’d changed his clothes and warmed his bones by the fire inside. He sits heavily on his bed and is once again reminded of images he’d had of her, here, naked in his bed. It was hard not to think about it, as he was desperately lonely after hiding for all this time. He hated how much he had looked forward to their connections through the force, even though it rarely went well. He almost enjoyed fighting with her, because it was some sort of interaction, even though it was terrible.

He shivers as he remembers the last time he had saw her, nearly a week ago, and he tries to blame it on his wet clothes. Their lips had almost touched, as she begged him to tell her where he was. He’d been tempted, _so tempted_ to just whisper the name of the planet against her lips, and he almost had before the connection was broken. He’d been very angry with himself that day, and he wasn’t sure why. Was he angry for wanting to tell her, or was he angry for not getting the chance? Or was he angry that she even wanted to know? She could have been with him, all that time ago when he’d offered her everything he had, and she’d told him no. It still made his blood boil as he thought of her, walking away from him and leaving him open to attack, open to deception that he wasn’t clear enough of mind to find himself. It made him angry that he was so weak and couldn’t see what was coming before it was nearly too late. He had been trained in the force, both the Light and the Dark, and was still deceived, and perhaps she was right. Maybe he was proud, too proud to believe that he could be overthrown, even as strong as he was.

Now he was here, on the edge of nowhere, while Hux sat smug upon his throne.

But, he hadn’t seen her since that morning, after he’d reacted to their shared vision of a future that would never happen. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, the force that flowed through him just lashed out at the sight of his mother and –

He dropped his head into his hands, feeling some unnamed emotion burn through him once more. The future of her, here with him in this cabin, and then of a child made him nearly sick to his stomach every time he thought of it.  He was angry at the force, angry at how it teased him and showed him things that he couldn’t have. Why did it continue to show him vision of futures that didn’t seem tangible? It had showed him a future with Rey beside him, bathed in darkness and that vision had never come to be. He had seen her turn and stand with him, but it had been a lie. She stood with him but did not turn, she’d left him there a splintered man with a splintered heart. He’d wanted to give her anything she could have ever dreamed of, she would have never wanted for anything if she had taken his hand. But instead, she’d wanted the only thing that he couldn’t give her and then she was gone.

Now, the force had show them another future, one of joy and peace, and he found that he couldn’t believe it, and therefore chose to ignore what it meant. There was no vision that the force could show him now that would make him believe any future beside the one he knew. He was going to be on the run for the rest of his life, with no where to call home until the First Order found him. Or if his mother found him, but he was sure he’d kill himself before he returned home, groveling to Leia Organa.

However, he wonders, as he strips of his wet tunic and undershirt, trading it out of a clean and dry shirt without sleeves, what if Rey did find him? Their connection to the force left him curious if she would be able to locate him, if she meditated and called to him. He had heard from Luke, back in the days of the Old Republic when there were thousands of Jedi, that it was possible to feel someone and know where they were, even if they were on the other side of the galaxy. Rey and himself already had that, to an extent, but it was spotty, and it relied on the force and its amusement of toying with them. It connected when he didn’t want it and refused when he’d needed it. It was only kind, in his moment of desperation, when he was sure that he would die as he fled from the First Order. It was kind and allowed him to see her, and she had come to him and the look on her face had been pure agony for him to see. He never wanted her to be sad, ever, and she had been sad for him. He was sure that he was going to die, and he felt relief, that she would never be sad over him again if he was gone.

But, he had lived, and he had only been able to see her a handful of times, times that had not gone very well. He was angry with her but wanted to be near her and the dichotomy of his feelings left him unbalanced and uneasy. He secretly longed that she would find him, but at the same time, he was terrified.

Terrified about what it would mean. Would she drag him home? If she did, he would be forced to kill himself before he set foot in front of his mother. Kylo knew that he would be a dead man anyway, he would be forced to answer for all of the crimes he’d committed over the last ten years. He would not be allowed to live in a galaxy where he’d slaughtered his fellow students in the temple, where he’d killed his own father in his journey to the dark side.

He was also terrified of the danger he would be putting Rey in if she came looking for him. The First Order was still out there somewhere, searching for him, and if Rey was also looking for him, the chances that their paths would cross were too high. Kylo couldn’t stomach the thought of them capturing her, because he knew Hux would use her as bait to draw him out of hiding.

It was bait that Ben knew he would take.

He walks outside briefly to retrieve several fish for tonight’s dinner and brings them inside, sitting down at a round scrubbed table and slowly starting to clean the fish. Tasks like these did wonders for him, calming his mind and giving his hands something to do. It also involved gutting something and it quenched the angry blood lust he seemed to feel constantly.

After he’s eaten, he starts his normal routine of working out. He did not have a sparring partner and he’d already lost a good portion of his muscle tone since he’d departed the Finalizer. The weeks that had led up to the coup had been difficult, stressful and he’d stopped eating, and very rarely ventured out of his quarters, falling into seclusion to avoid the looks of the people around him. And now, he needed something to do to pass the time, and laying around and letting himself rot was not the way to spend his time.

He worked with his saber, and on occasion would do pull ups and sit ups until his muscles burned and his body was covered in sweat. Only then would he allow himself to sleep, and in the morning, he would do it again. He was glad that the ocean outside was fresh, it allowed him to wash his clothes and clean himself and feel at least a little refreshed before the humidity of the day set in. But he admitted to himself that he was probably going a little mad out here alone. He cursed his longing to see Rey.

And, just like that, he felt the familiar feeling of suction and then silence, and then she was there, sitting at his table, her knees tucked up on the chair, with her back to him. He should care about how eagerly he moved toward where she was sitting, but at this point, it hardly mattered.

He walks around the table to get a look at her face. She doesn’t look at him, instead she stares ahead at something in front of her, something he cannot see, and she’s biting her lip in concentration. He can hear a murmuring, almost a radio crackle, but it’s indistinct and muffled. He leans against the table next to her.

“What are you doing?” He asks, trying to get her to look at him. She only shakes her head and waves her hand at him in a gesture for him to be quiet.

He watches her for another minute, taking in her lovely cheeks and lips and then he curses himself, rolling his eyes and looking away from her.

“Don’t pout,” she commands, still not moving her eyes away from the fixed, invisible point on the table. After another moment, she sighs, reaching forward as if to touch something, and then she pulls her arm back to wrap around her legs. She finally looks up at him.

Her eyes widen a bit, seeing him dressed the way that he is, and she looks away quickly, and Kylo is a bit smug at the sight of the pink on her cheeks. Her eyes dart around before she settles them on his face, and she holds them there, as if she’s not allowed to look down.  

“What were you doing?” Kylo asks again, nodding his head in the direction of whatever she had been preoccupied with.

She sighs, before looking away again and fiddling with the edge of the table.

“I was listening to First Order radio chatter,” she says, and she looks like she’s admitting something that she doesn’t want to.

His eyebrows crease. “Why would you be doing that?” _Well, actually,_ he thinks, _that’s a dumb question_. Perhaps she is scouting and looking for information about their movements. Then, something occurs to him. “How are you listening to them?”

She appears uneasy, lifting her hand to her mouth and beginning to chew on her thumb nail. She still won’t look at him.

“I bought a radio at some market, and I kind of fiddled with it, and now I can hear some of the transports comm chatter. But, it’s only if I’m in the same system.”

 _The same system?_ “Where are you?” He demands, standing to turn and lean his palms on the table. He leans his face so that she has no choice but to look at him. “What are you doing in the same system as the First Order?”

She looks at him for a long moment, and Kylo is almost, _almost_ distracted by how close their faces are once more.

She shrugs. “I’m following them.”

He growls, low in this throat. She is being vague on purpose and it’s driving him insane. _She_ is driving him insane.

She huffs, and shifts in her chair, moving so that her face isn’t so close to his. He follows, leaning farther forward so that he can still she her face. “Rey, damnit, tell me.” He feels worried that she’s in danger. It only serves to make him more agitated. He shouldn’t _care_.

Her eyes snap to his, and there’s a fire inside her gaze. One that he hasn’t seen in a long time and it makes him burn inside. “I’m looking for you.”

His blood goes cold. “You’re following the First Order to look for _me_?” His voice is low, and deadly. She just looks at him, not giving an answer right away.  He pushes off of the table with a groan and moves away from her. His hands fist into his hair and he groans, loudly, frustrated, before turning back to her.

“You’re an absolute fool,” he seethes, moving around the table so that he is across from her. He slams his palms down and she jumps at the noise, but glares at him in response. “I told you to stay away! Are you looking to get captured? Why don’t you just dock your ship in their hangar and ask for directions?” His voice is growing louder and louder and she is completely unphased.

“I’m not an idiot, you know?” She snaps at him, and brings her arms tightly around herself, her eyes still blazing. “Do you think that I don’t know how to take care of myself? I don’t go to a planet unless they’ve already moved on. I know how to hide, I know how to go undetected.”

He rolls his eyes, his anger still boiling. “I hope you are prepared to look for me for a long time. You’ll never find me if this is your plan. What do you expect to do? Hmm? Follow them to each planet and then hope that they missed something in their search? I’m sure they are burning a wake through the galaxy looking for me.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “They aren’t doing any such thing. I don’t think they want anyone to know that they are looking for you.”

He scoffs at her, and it’s a nasty, sneering noise that rises from his throat. “Of course they don’t. They want everyone to think that I’m dead. Most of those in the High Command _do_ think that I’m dead.”

Rey says nothing.

“Well? What do you think you’ll find that they don’t?” A sick curiosity nags at his stomach. How does she think she would find him doing this? Is she planning to use their bond to feel for him on each planet she searches? Could she really find him that way?

She chews on her lip again, and her eyes narrow in thought as she regards him. “I don’t really know. I just think I’d know if you were on the same planet I was. I think the force would tell me. I’ve decided to listen to what it’s been trying to tell me. To tell us.”

His anger cools, and he drops himself into a chair opposite her. He rubs his hand over his face and slouches down, folding his hands over his abdomen.

“Where are you, anyway? Just so I know how far off your searching is.”

Her eyes narrow again, this time with menace, as she leans forward and looks down at what he can only assume is the console of a ship. “Outer Rim,” she reads and her eyes squint. “The Tion Cluster? I’m currently docked on Arcan, waiting to see what direction the First Order jumps in. I think I heard something about Felucia and then the Lianna system.”

 _The Tion Cluster._ He’d left his ship on Felucia weeks ago, and they were still here looking for him. His time was running out.  They were too close.

Ben feels sick, cold, and very light headed. He launches to his feet, moving around the table in an instant until he is in front of Rey. She looks at him, alarmed.

“Ben? What is it?”

He is panicking. He reaches for her, grabbing her shoulders and leaning very close. His breath is coming out in shallow puffs, his lungs unable to work properly. Rey’s face is scared as she looks at him and he can’t be bothered to care. She reaches for his face and when her skin touches his, it’s like lightning.

“Too close,” is all he can choke out before he moves away from her abruptly. He’s acting like a maniac.

“What do you mean?” She asks, her voice shaking with fear. “Where are you?”

He closes his eyes, trying to take deep breaths and he debates with himself. His options are limited, and at this point, he knows that it’s time to cave.

He looks at her face, and sighs.

“Input these coordinates into your navigation. I’ll be here when you get here.” He begins to recite his location and she takes a moment process what is happening before she jumps up and begins to input the location into the computer. As the computer processes it, he watches her face and his stomach feels heavy. When her eyes snap to his, wide and scared, the connection breaks.

 

* * *

 

 

“You _kriffing_ bastard!” She shouts as he vanishes, and she hopes that he heard her, even as the bond was dissipating. She’s slamming the buttons to begin the liftoff sequence quickly, and already pulling the ship off the ground before it can properly warm up. It whines in protest as she coaxes it upward and she’s barely cleared the atmosphere before she’s punching in the coordinates that he told her into the navigation and making the jump to hyperspace. She doesn’t really need to, as Voss is only a 2-standard hour flight from her present location, but she can’t wait. She has to get to him.

And kill him.

Well maybe not kill him, but ring his neck, surely.

 _Don’t forget about dismembering him for breaking your ribs_ , she reminds herself, and she growls in her chest.

The trip takes 20 minutes and as she drops out of her hyperspace, she’s still a bit hot under the collar, annoyed at him. He had been so cocky and so sure that she was on the other side of the galaxy, but all this time as she followed the First Order around for a week, planet after planet, he had been right there, nearly under her nose. And under the First Order’s nose.

She enters the atmosphere and focuses on the force, hoping that her hunch would be right, that the bond would light up and tell her where he was. There are no large civilizations that she can make out, no ports of call or outposts, just outcroppings of people here and there as she glides over the surface, trying to locate him.

She feels warm, and the force moves around her quickly, and she feels that her hunch was right. She can feel him, nearby and familiar and her heart because to race, and her anger fades out. She wonders, however, if it’s because he finally wants to be found. She wonders if she would be able to feel him otherwise.

Suddenly, she sees black water and black sand. It’s like her dreams and her visions and her pulse quickens, and she feels _heat_ all over her body. She sees a small building, a shack really, sitting on a bluff near the waters edge and she knows. 

Bringing the ship down on the beach softly, she sits in the cockpit for a minute, trying to settle her emotions as they bubble up in her stomach. She looks through the window at the cabin and sees the force’s version of the future spreading out in front of her, about to become a reality. When she steps off the ship, the future she saw could be set into motion. It scares her. In her visions, she saw herself naked on the bed inside that cabin. She saw Ben with her, his hands on her skin, his lips moving over her shoulder.

She shakes her head. She’s been here before, on the precipice of entering a future shown to her by the force, and she remembers the anticipation, and the hurt when it turned out to not be what she’d envisioned. She must not be distracted by what could be, she must only focus what is.

She hasn’t seen him, in person, since that day, in the throne room. When she’d told him no and left him there on the floor of a damaged ship, in that burning room.

Once again, she is here to try to save him.

She picks up her pack and lowers the ramp, taking a deep breath before stepping off the ship. The air is heavy, like she’s walking though an invisible fog, and her skin is immediately damp, and her clothes feel too heavy.

She walks toward the cabin, and as she looks up, she sees him, standing at the door, dressed like he was when she saw him across the bond, his shirt tight, without sleeves. He’s leaning against the door jam and she can feel the tension between them, even at this distance. He watches her approach, and just as she begins to ascend the cliff, he turns away and walks inside.

He leaves the door open for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is interested, I made a tumblr to go with my account here. I've had a tumblr for a LONG time, but I decided to make one specifically for this, because a lot of the people I know through my original tumblr aren't the most Reylo friendly bunch, and I don't want to push something they aren't interested in on them. So, I made a new separate one, that you can find me on if you want to chat or anything <3
> 
> [darth-ernzo](http://darth-ernzo.tumblr.com/)  
> and this is a handy little tool if you want to search the [star wars galaxy](http://www.swgalaxymap.com/) to see the planets mentioned in this chapter. It's also fun to look around at everything and lose precious hours of your day.


	8. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here you come again  
> Just when I've begun to get myself together  
> You waltz right in the door  
> Just like you've done before  
> And wrap my heart 'round your little finger
> 
> Here you come again  
> Just when I'm about to make it work without you  
> You look into my eyes and lie those pretty lies  
> And pretty soon I'm wondering how I came to doubt you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. TOO LONG, SAPPY A/N AHEAD:
> 
> It's been 4 weeks since I updated this story and I'm sorry. I'm sure that a few have seen comments say that I've been suffering from writer's block and it's been terrible. On top of that, I've been suffering from a serious bout of depression which left me unmotivated to really do much besides get up and go to work. I've felt guilty nearly every day that I couldn't write. I tried. This chapter would not work for me. I didn't know how I wanted to accomplish what I wanted to, and the build up of them finally meeting again face to face was a lot of pressure to write, honestly. I wanted it to be good, and live up to expectations. 
> 
> I want to thank everyone that still came around to comment and check on me. It seriously helped and was amazing. Comments this morning and last week was actually enough to get me to write and this chapter flowed suddenly, so again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I just want to write something that people like and I'm very hard on myself, wondering if I was even doing that. Everyone who comments or leaves kudos or bookmarks or even clicks to read, it means so, so much to me and really does make it easier for me to write. I love you all.
> 
> I'M DONE, Now, on to the story, in which Rey arrives to find a very sour Ben sulking like a hobbit.

When she walks into the cabin, she finds him sitting on the bed, his head in his hands. As she enters, he looks up at her and they stare at each other for a long, endless moment. Time slows and the entire galaxy swirls in the space between them. Rey is reminded of looking at him from across the abyss of space, light years away but now, he’s right there in front of her. So much has been left unsaid between them, and now that he’s here, she finds herself at a loss of what to do, of what to say. He stares back at her, eyes surprisingly warm, expression revealing the slightest hint of hope.  
  
The longer they hold each other’s gaze, the more lightheaded Rey feels, warmth blossoming over her skin, her breathing loud. She feels the weight of the room around them and their vision sits heavy on her chest, despite her determinations to not allow the uncertain promise of the future.

His mind is silent, giving her nothing.  
  
“We should go,” she finally breathes, hoping to equalize the tension in the room. He’s still looking at her, eyes narrowing slightly, and she can see that his breaths are shallower than before.  
  
And then he snorts, and the spell is broken.  
  
“Go? Go where?” His voice is disbelieving and cold. “Where are you going to take me? To answer for my crimes? Are you going to take me to my execution?” His eyes, warm a moment before, have gone dark, and calculating.  
  
“No,” she says softly. She cannot tell him where they are going. “But, we have to go before the First Order is here.”  
  
He doesn’t budge.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
Rey sighs and walks fully into the small cabin. She pulls off her bag and sets it heavily on the table, leaning her staff against the wall. Crossing her arms, she turns and rests her back against the table, leveling a glare at him.  
  
His arms are bare, he’s hunched forward, elbows resting on his knees. His eyes are still on her, and she resists the urge to squirm under his gaze.  
  
“You can’t stay here.” Rey tells him firmly.  
  
Finally, he moves, rubbing his hands through his hair roughly before standing. He walks toward her, coming close— too close before he stops. She looks up at him, ignoring her mind screaming to keep her gaze averted, and he’s so tall. And broad. She sets her mouth in a grim line, nostrils flaring.  
  
“Why are you here?” He asks, and his voice is low but full of contempt.  
  
“Making sure you don’t get separated from that big head of yours, courtesy of the First Order.”  
  
He steps closer and she looks away, eyes closing as the Force around them pulses, warm and heavy. She can feel him, pressing the advantage, tendrils of his dark energy brushing against her mind. He’s gentler than he’s ever been, and it’s almost as if he’s seeking permission, asking her to let him see her intentions. Despite herself, she allows his probing for a moment, not giving up anything, surprised at how she feels relief at him in her mind again.  
  
Taking this hesitation for permission, Ben presses a little harder, and Rey has had enough.  
  
“No.” She snaps, looking up at him with fury. She’s angry at herself for letting him linger, angry at him for even thinking she would allow it.  
  
He steps away, sharply, and he looks strangely taken aback by her sudden anger. Rey’s eyebrows crease in confusion.  
  
He steps back more fully before he turns away, the moment between them once again lost, moving to a small dresser and —mercifully— pulls his familiar tunic on, before turning back to her.  
  
“You need to move that ship. If the First Order flies through here, that ship sitting out there will be a sure-fire way to get both of our heads separated from our bodies.”  
  
She sighs. It had been optimistic of her to assume that he would see her and walk right on board her ship, no questions asked. To fly away, together, as if their history was just that, history. But it wasn’t. It was an angry, unresolved festering wound that was an affliction to both of them. It hurt, and it burned, and it couldn’t not be treated without the help of the other.  They didn’t have the luxury of much time, but it would seem she was settling in for a long fight to get him to come with her.  
  
“Where?” She asks, as he pulls his boots on and pulls his lightsaber from a drawer, before clipping it to his belt, and heading toward the door.  
  
“There’s a cave, two clicks west of here. That’s where my own ship is, it should be large enough to hide both.”  
  
Rey eyes the lightsaber on his belt. Wary and slightly jealous.  
  
“What do we need that for?” She indicates his saber.  
  
He turns fully and looks at her, a slight smile twitching at his lips.  
  
“Don’t even think about kidnapping me.”  
  
She rolls her eyes.

* * *

 

  
Ben stays by the gangway door, just out of sight, as Rey gets into the pilot seat and begins the ignition sequence. She shakes her head, imagining him trying to fling himself from the craft if she tries to leave the planet’s atmosphere with him on board.  
  
“Where is my father’s bucket of bolts?” He calls from the door. “Did someone blow it up? Or did it finally disintegrate?”  
  
“Too conspicuous,” she calls back, as she lifts the ship from the ground and heads west, as he indicated. “Can’t you just come up here and show me where the kriff I’m going?”   
  
They haven’t ever really been around each other. Only the many, but brief instances in the Force, and even briefer time physically together which was always almost spent fighting or arguing. But now, here together, it was hard not to be a bit surprised at how... petulant he was. She knew him to be morose and grumpy, always serious and upset, but it seemed that he sulked and mistrusted almost all the things around him. She’d never lied to him, but, she reasons with herself, she had broken his trust, betrayed him even, back in the throne room. She finally understands him a bit, more than she thought she had, but it still causes her to bristle. Did he really think her so cruel?  
  
Maybe. And maybe she did deserve it. And his trust essential for this mission to work.  
  
“Please?” She calls again, gently, and perhaps just soft enough for him to hear. She moves the ship slowly, not wanting to overshoot their destination, waiting for him to acquiesce, and she finally hears the loud footfalls heading in her direction.

He enters the cockpit, but lingers at the door, refusing to step any closer to where Rey is sitting. She glances back, over her shoulder and sees him craning to see out of the viewport at the terrain below them, and she forced to resist the urge to roll her eyes once more.

“If I really wanted to  _do_  anything to you, I could do it, even if you are lurking all the way back there, you know. I could whack you against the bulkhead with the Force and be out of this system before you woke up.” She informs him coolly, turning back to glance down at the instruments on the console.  

She hears him grumble, and she assumes that he hadn’t intended her to hear, but she hears his footfalls once more, and then suddenly, he’s next to her, just like he was when he last appeared to her in the Force, He leans down, resting an arm on the console, his other arm grabbing the back of the captain’s chair, effectively boxing her in.  He knows that she’s right, but he doesn’t want her to think that she’s won.

He says nothing, his closeness making Rey’s skin feel warm again, and he just simply watches the landscape below them for a few minutes before he indicates with his hand.

“There, just below that ridge.”

Rey sees it, and if he hadn’t brought it to her attention, she would have missed it. It’s a good hiding place, she wonders how he found it.

“I’ve been here a while, I needed something to do, so I’ve been scouting the area.” He answers her thoughts and she shoots him a look of annoyance, annoyed that he’s been picking in her head again.

Rey carefully maneuvers the ship down, sliding it carefully through a crack in the bedrock, before it opens to a wide cavern. She sees a small, light speeder, nestled down in the cave and she drops the ship down in front of it. She clicks all the levers to power the ship down, and moves to stand, but Ben does not move, he does not yield. He holds the back of the chair, his hand still on the console blocking her exit. She looks up at him in confusion.

“What—?”

“Why are you here?” He asks again, talking over her, his voice low, steady. His eyes are intense, and she can’t help but notice how dark the circles are below his eyes, and she wonders when the last time he slept was. His hair, already grown long in his time as Supreme Leader, falls into his eyes, wavy and unruly. She hates how she’s struck at how handsome he is, despite how terribly broken and lost he is. Her fingers twitch and she longs to reach up and run her fingers over the dark marks below his eyes. To soothe them. “I told you to stay away.  I told you leave me alone.”

She looks at him, her eyes squinting a bit. “I’m trying not to make a habit out of listening to the voices inside my head.”

He leans closer, undeterred. “You didn’t have a problem when you decided to come here.”

Her lip twitches in annoyance. “You didn’t either, when you gave me the coordinates to find you.”

He glares, changing tact. “What do you  _want_?” He’s exasperated at her stubborn streak.

She decides to give. She has to change the tide of their relationship. She needs him to trust her. She needs him to help her. The fission between them hurts her, causes unease. As much as it satisfies her to simply hate him on most occasions, it feels better to just accept him and mending the open wound that is their connection will bring them both peace.

And she already admitted the truth to herself. But she keeps it from her thoughts.

Her eyes soften.

“Help me mend my lightsaber.”

This is clearly not the response that he’s expecting. He visibly startles, leaning away from her abruptly and standing, a look of shock flashing across his face, and she feels it jolt through the bond down her spine. His breathing becomes uneven and it looks like a thousand replies run through his mind.

“You— you want me to—?” His eyes dart back and forth. “You what—” Then anger colors his features. “You are asking me for help to mend  _my_  lightsaber when it’s your fault that it’s broken?” He leans forward suddenly, and his face is very close to hers once more. “How  _dare_  you?”

Rey did not want to react. She knew that he would be upset at her request, for several reasons, but his renewed accusation snaps her calm. Rage floods through her blood.

“ _My_  fault?” Her voice is low, dangerous. “You’re insane!” She stands up, trying to force him to give ground, but he doesn’t allow her to pass. The Force rumbles through her.

“Ah, there’s the darkside,” he sneers at her, seemingly unphased by how angry he’s made her. He actually looks like he’s enjoying it.

“Don’t,” she snaps, leaning toward him now. “You need to find a new angle for your anger at me, instead of blaming me for the rest of your damned life because you failed. It’s not only my fault and you know it. Your grandfather’s lightsaber calls to me just as much as it called to you. And now, I  _am_  in a position negotiate. There’s no stormtroopers around to intimidate me, no warships or  _Supreme Leaders_.” She sneers the last word at him. He opens his mouth, taking in a deep breath, and she assumes he wants to shout in her face, but she continues, her voice rising to drown him out. “We both destroyed that lightsaber! What did you think would happen when you asked me to make an impossible choice? What did  _you_  want?” Rey knew this fight would never end. They would fight about this for the rest of their lives.

“I just wanted you to be with me!” He bellows, and the words bounce off that metal around them, reverberating and burning Rey’s eardrums. The both jerk back from each other in shock. She feels her heart begin to pound as she sees the color drain from Ben’s face. She feels shame, regret and burning embarrassment, but not her own. He clearly had not meant to say that, to admit it, but his anger only fueled his lack of self-control. He’s said this to her before, but there was something different in the way he’d said it now; while he’s so close. For some reason, it makes her tremble, and the images of the cabin in their vision flash before Rey’s eyes. Ben’s eyes widen, and he takes a step back, stumbling until he’s leaning against the wall.

Rey shakes her head to clear it, her fury vanishing as if there been cold water being thrown over her. She didn’t want to fight anymore. She’s so tired. How long would they circle, fighting the same fight, admitting the same things, before it was too much. Or too late? She takes a deep breath, and steps slowly toward him, her eyes finding his. She locks her gaze on him, never wavering as she approaches.

As she nears, she sees him push back against the side of the ship, recoiling from her approach, and for the first time, he looks afraid of her. His eyes are wide, and they dart back and forth, like cornered animal, caught by its prey. She tastes his fear in her mouth and feels it in her mind. She moves until she’s directly in front of him, barely a breath between them.

“Do you still?”

He’s staring at her, the muscle under his eye twitching.

“Do I still what?”

“Want me?”

He draws in a breath, ragged, loud, and shaky. She watches as his broad chest inflates and his shoulders rise.

“Yes,” he exhales, and his dark eyes are as black as the sand on the beach.

She steps closer, their bodies brushing together. She can feel the heat radiating off of him, she can smell him; he smells like salt water and wood.

“Then, help me. Help me become your equal again; show me how to put it back together.” She's changed her own angle. She's asking for his help now, instead of begging him to allow her to help him. There is a double meaning on her words,  _show me how to put you back together,_  and she feels him give. She gasps as he grabs her shoulders roughly, spinning her and pressing her back against the side wall of the ship and crowding his body against her. Her still tender ribs scream, but she ignores them, her breath catching as he bends his body down, his face so close to hers she can feel his breath as it causes the hairs around her face to move. She tilts her face up, finding his eyes, and she’s barely breathing, her lungs seemingly unable to inflate. She’s once again caged by his arms, his palms flat on either side of her head. Her hands find his waist without really meaning to, but she must find purchase on something as she reels from the abrupt change in position; in the change of the air around them.

And then, his lips are on hers, rough, demanding, unyielding. It’s all Rey can do to hold on for dear life, her fingers clenching at the fabric of his shirt, her body lifting onto her toes, a sharp inhale moving noisily through her nose. Shock rolls through her, clenching her stomach and making her palms sweat, freezing her in place against his body. His lips are so soft against her mouth, and she can’t even comprehend the feelings that flow through, as she feels the Force around them hum and press in around them. Her hands slide up his chest as he tilts his head and pushes her further back against the wall, their lips moving in tandem, seamless as she opens her mouth to him, her body asking for more without her mind’s permission. His tongue dips tentatively inside her mouth to find hers, and she responds with an unbidden noise from the back of her throat.

Ben pulls back quickly, and Rey is caught a little off balance, as her body had followed him, and he pulls away completely. She opens her eyes, her lids heavy as she looks up into his face. His eyes are closed, and his lips are set in a grimace, with heavy breaths shaking his whole body. She slides her hands up his chest lightly, tentatively, trying to bring him back from wherever he’s gone, and his eyes open to find hers.

His eyes are a black storm and the look he’s giving her sets her soul on fire. It startles her; she never thought that she could feel the way she feels about this man. She hates him, at the very same time she doesn’t. Not at all. It burns inside of her, and she’s not sure if it’s a welcome feeling or not. Before she left, she admitted that there were feelings there, but she realizes now, that she had been fooling herself about the depth and seriousness of those feelings. This torn, lost, broken man, was the equal to her own torn and tortured life, and now, she wondered where it would go from here.

Just as the thought crosses her mind, he suddenly moves, his arm rearing back, and his fist striking the steel next to her, causing her to jump, and a deep growl reverberating from his chest.

“Ben, what—?!”

He turns without answering, stalking away from her and out of sight.

Rey, body still trembling from the kiss, and from the shock of his reaction, brings her fingers to her lips as she hears the sound of the gang way ramp being lowered.  

Sighing, she drops her head back against the wall, collecting herself for a moment.

She supposes she could stay here on the ship, sleep here and then venture out in the morning to find his cabin once more. It’s probably the safer option, sleeping away from him, not near a bed, not in the room that haunts her every time she closes her eyes. And they should probably both cool down.

But, a larger part of her reasons that she shouldn’t let him go off, not now, not when something has clearly changed between them.

Not when she wants to be near him, she grudgingly admits.

Taking a deep, slow breath through her nose, she pushes off from the wall before walking back toward the console of the ship. She flips a switch, recording the message and hoping that it will transmit through the bedrock above the ship. Once she receives the confirmation that the message has been sent, she turns and follows Ben down the gangway, hoping he hasn’t gotten too far ahead of her. She doesn’t know what lurks in the shadows on this planet.

* * *

 

Lightyears away, a light begins to flash in front of Leia as she sits in the control room, sorting through data pads. Leia leans forward quickly, turning the dial to bring up the encoded message.

_Located. He’s is safe. Not sure how long to execute mission. He is stubborn._

Leia laughs, and lets out a sigh of relief.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dolly Parton - Here You Come Again is the inspiration for this chapter, lmao. Ben is Dolly, obviously. ~~And Joshua. Ben is also Joshua~~
> 
> They spent more time fighting in this chapter than I intended. I knew it was going to be a rocky road, but they have a lot of unfinished business™. And they weren't supposed to kiss. OOOPS. 
> 
> Come and find me on [tumblr.](http://darth-ernzo.tumblr.com) I ramble and talk about Ben Solo too much to be allowed or normal. Also Adam Driver. And John Boyega. and everyone. 
> 
> I love you all so so much, you all are amazing.  
> xox


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again.
> 
> Thank you for every kind comment on last chapter. I appreciate so much everyone who commented and shared their own struggles with mental health and it always makes it just a little easier to know that you aren't alone when you feel the darkness sometimes. <3
> 
> Some of you may have noticed the addition of "Part I" and "Part II" to the chapter titles. I did that to break the story up a little bit, mostly for my own sanity about my progress, but Part I is Rey before leaving to save Ben and Part II is where we are currently, which is Rey with Ben on Voss. Part III will be... the climax of the story and that's all I will say about that ;)
> 
> This chapter is a lot of inner monologue and the next chapters will accomplish more and set us on our direction to part III. I hope every one likes it, it was a lot for me and I just wanted to complete something to help stave off my writers block.

She hurries to catch up with him, and when she does, she keeps herself several paces back, unsure of how to approach him, now. She can tell that he’s aware that she’s caught up, but he makes no acknowledgement of her presence.

They walk for a quarter of an hour, and Rey very quickly finds herself upset about the climate on this planet. Where Ahch-to had been a pleasant kind of humid, Voss is oppressive. Everything about it is oppressive. The grey sky, the grey land, the black sea with a black beach. And humidity that feels as if it’s crushing her. She removes the outer jacket she’s wearing, folding it over her arm as they move, and even that is uncomfortable. Ahead of her, Ben shrugs out of his tunic, revealing his fitted sleeveless shirt once more, and flicks the fabric over his shoulder. She can see the glistening of sweat against his shoulders.

Finally, the hut comes in to view. He stops at something of a cross roads. The hill branches up, leading to the cabin, or down, leading to the ocean. He points with his hand, finally behaving as if she exists.

“You can go down to the water if you want to wash up. The water is fresh.”

She comes up to stand next to him, nodding. The light is fading quickly, and she feels the dark begin to settle over the landscape.

“There isn’t anything… in there that is going to get me, is there?” She asks, kind of joking, but not really.

He drops a withering look over his shoulder at her before shaking his head. “Nothing that I’ve ever encountered.”

He disappears up the hill to the cabin, and she sighs, heading down toward the water.

* * *

 

When they’d finally come back inside together, there had been a tense, but brief argument about the sleeping arrangements. Ben had insisted that Rey take the bed, which she vehemently refused for a multitude of reasons. The more she denied his attempt at gallantry, the angrier he got, mouth pressing into a thin line, breathing harsh through his nose, before he finally agreed, snapping a cold and resentful, “fine!” at her before he walked to the chest in the corner and roughly removed a stack of blankets. He threw them to the floor before removing a pillow from his own bed and throwing it on top of the pile before removing his shirt and climbing into bed without another word.

She lays on her back, now her arm sprawled out next to her, her eyes watching the fire crackle. She’s not all together uncomfortable, the blankets are soft enough to cushion her from the floor, and the pillow is soft below her head. She tries not to notice the way it smells like him, but she can’t resist smelling the lingering scent on the fabric of the pillow. She’s had worse, much worse.

She’s been laying like this for quite a while, unable to find sleep. She’s not sure if it’s the unfamiliar location, the tempest of her emotions, or the fact that the source of that tempest sleeps less than five feet from her, above her on the bed. They brew inside her, but she allows it, almost calm as she sorts through every thought and feeling she has about her current situation.

He’d kissed her. He said he still wanted her. What did that mean? How had her hatred of him softened into something so warm, so tender? She can hardly pinpoint the moment when she went from loathing him to… distinctly not loathing him anymore. After the Throne Room, after Crait, she wasn’t sure how she even regarded him. She was angry, and she was heartbroken. He had opened up to her, he had been something to her that she had never had before. Someone who truly understood where she came from, and why she felt the way she felt. He’d been there for her, but he had also been cruel, too honest. And each time the bond had opened since then, there had been hurt from both of them, hurt and resentment that neither of them could seem to reconcile. They were both too proud, Rey realizes, too proud to let the other in again. But, she was here. She was here to bring him home, to bring him to safety, even if he didn’t want it. At least she hoped she could bring him home safely, her mission still looming over her head. Being here with him, in such close quarters, with such volatile feelings coursing through them, made it so much harder. What was happening between them? She wanted it at the same time she felt she could never allow it. Her heart had softened and she hated herself for feeling this way for a man that barely deserved it.

Lost in her thoughts, she’s not aware that he’s awake until he moves, extracting himself from his bed carefully, stepping around her legs and heading into small makeshift kitchen in the corner. Her eyes track him, watching as his shoulders curl in on himself while he fiddles with the carafe, intending to make himself caf. He’s noisy, and she wonders if he’s doing it on purpose, or if he just doesn’t understand how to be around another person. She makes no indication that she’s awake, keeping her mind protected, just watching him as he pours reclaimed water from a jug and turns on the carafe. He rests his hands wide on the counter, his back bare, and his head dropped down between he shoulders as he waits for the caf to brew. He’s not aware that he needs to protect his mind, so his own thoughts, loud as he once accused hers of being, flow through to her uninhibited. He’s torn, like always, but it’s for a new, unfamiliar reason. Her. What to do with her here. His turmoil had been about her before, but now he doesn’t know how to traverse the feelings he has for her. He’s wanted her, wanted her by his side, but now that she’s here, he’s unsure how to proceed. He thinks of her lips against his, and Rey feels how she felt against his body as he pressed her against the side of the ship. He’s still angry with himself for being drawn to her and for giving in. He’s still so angry with her, and the anger causes Rey’s stomach to turn, but it’s dissipating. Her own words ring in her head, _you need to find a new angle for your anger at me, instead of blaming me for the rest of your damned life because you failed._ And he knows that she’s right. And now she’s here, and he has nothing to offer. He’s been betrayed and run off with his tail between his legs. He has no galaxy to give her, so why is she here?

The carafe beeps softly and he’s pulled out of his thoughts. She watches as he grabs a mug from the corner, and he pours the steaming liquid into the mug. Rey sits up before he turns, ready to make her presence known, and takes in the planes of his back, in his shoulders, each glimmer of his scars in the faint light. He’s much less bulky than he’d been all those months ago, he’s leaner now, lither. There’s more definition in each muscle group, and despite it all, she finds herself admiring the way they move under his skin and the dip and groove and how they play in the light of the fire. She warms at her own desires, at the way she lets her eyes linger and imagine how it would all feel under her finger tips.

No wonder the Force showed her and him ending up in bed together.

She shakes her head to clear it, just as he turns to move to the table. He looks up, at where she should be sleeping, the mug raised to his lips and he stops dead.

“Sorry,” he murmurs immediately, lowering the cup. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

She waves her hand at him, dismissing him, and he eyes her for a moment before he moves to sit at the table, resolved that she’s not upset.

They sit in silence for a moment, and Rey rubs her face, glancing around the room for a moment, and settling her eyes on the  fire.

“You don’t sleep,” she whispers. It’s not a question, it’s a statement.

He doesn’t answer, and when she turns back to look at his face, he’s staring down at the cup, his over large hands wrapped around it.

Rey stands, lifting herself off the blankets and making her way around the table until she’s standing next to where he sits at the table. She stands, looking at him, her hand resting on the surface, and leans over him. Finally, he turns, shifting in his seat until he is facing her, one hand resting on his thigh, the other still wrapped around his mug.

He glances up at her, dark eyes and shadows playing across his face in the light of the dying fire.

Rey finds that she cannot resist touching the circles under his eyes. She touches them softly, lightly with the pads of her finger tips. “Why?” His eyes flutter at her touch.

He laughs without humor, his face unchanging as his shoulders rise with the exhale of breath. He moves his face away from her hand, not unkindly, but deliberately.

“Sleeping has brought me more pain and suffering than the waking world has. For my entire life.”

She moves her hand to his shoulder, her eyebrows creasing.

He sighs, looking down and away from her.

“When I was a boy, I had nightmares; a voice in my head that haunted my dreams. Every fear I ever had was a reality. I saw how my parents were afraid of me, I saw how they were disappointed, I saw them sending me away because they didn’t know what to do with me. And when I was awake, all of those things came true. My parents thought I was a monster.”

“They didn’t, Ben,” Rey interrupts, unable to help herself.

His eyes find hers again, the fire of the room reflecting in his eyes. “They _did_ ,” he insists, his voice cold. “I overheard them talking, overheard how they fought about me.” Rey sees his mind, he allows her into the memories that plague him. Han and Leia’s voices float through a closed door. A smaller, younger Ben, dark hair with ears too big, listening as they talk about him. Rey distinctly hears the word monster, muffled. She grips his shoulder tighter. “They send me away to Luke. And he thought I was a monster, too, he tried to kill me while I slept.” Rey’s heart sinks at her own memory this time, and a chill crawls up her spine through their bond as his fears become her own.  “I have nowhere to escape my nightmares. When I sleep, I dream of all the horrible things that I don’t want to come true. When I’m awake, they always do.”

“Ben,” she whispers, her voice barely a breath. “That’s why I came to find you. To make sure no one hurts you.”

He rolls his eyes, turning away from her to hold his mug once more with both hands. “You want to protect me?” His voice is harsh, incredulous. Her hand falls from his shoulder.

“No. You don’t need protecting,” she allows. “But, you are really horrible when left to your own devices.” He looks sharply at her, about to argue, but she continues. “You, left alone in the universe, it’s all you’ve known. And things don’t always—” she hesitates. “Things don’t always _go_ very well when you are alone.”

He huffs. “That might be an understatement.”

“When you were a child, you were alone and Snoke preyed on that. Fed into your loneliness, showed you that your parents made you lonely. You had no one to turn to, so you went to Snoke.” He shakes his head but says nothing. She sees his leg begin to bounce under the table as she presses on. “He was in your head, then you killed him and you were alone again. What happened when you were alone this time?” She asks, her voice gentle.

She feels the agitation flare between them. “You left me alone,” he seethes at her, his voice low, keeping his eyes trained to the table. She says nothing, her hand coming to his shoulder again. Rey realizes this will always be something he resents. There will be nothing that will heal this wound completely. The same way he resents his parents for never being there, the same way he resents Luke. She, just like everyone else, left him in his hour of need.

He does not flinch away from her hand. “I am here now,” she whispers. “I didn’t want to leave you alone. But, it wasn’t my choice. The Force had a different plan for you. For us both. It wasn’t the right time for me to stay. Neither of us were ready, Ben.”

“I was ready,” he insists. “I was ready to give you anything you wanted so you’d stay.”

She steps closer, her hand moving to the back of his neck, her fingertips brushing the edges of his hair. “We both know that isn’t true.”

He sighs, and it’s almost a growl, as he moves away from her, standing abruptly, and moving back toward the counter. “I wanted it to be true.”

“I know,” Rey murmurs, and she does. She could feel what he felt that day. He truly wanted her to join him. She felt the simmering passion as he stared at her, felt his longing, felt his shred of hope. But, it wasn’t right. The words he spoke, they didn’t match the things he felt. He hurt her.

“I’m not… good with feeling how I feel,” he offers, following the line of her thoughts. Despite herself, she laughs, shaking her head as she looks at him.

“At least you know that, now.”

He does not smile, but as he looks at her, and she feels herself warm all over.

“Let me help you,” she offers again, her voice turning serious as she looks at his tired face. “Sleep. No one will hurt you while I am here. Try.”

He crosses his arms over his chest and Rey’s eyes can’t help but flicker and appreciate the way his biceps bulge and his shoulders round. He notices the way she looks at him, but he does not smirk, he does not mock her. He knows.

Still, his eyes are skeptical as he looks at her and ruminates over her offer.

“Ben,” she begins but he shakes his head.

“Fine,” he agrees, and she can see how utterly exhausted he looks. The dark circles under his eyes, and the pale color of his face. He stares a moment longer before he moves back toward the bed, climbing in and curling in on himself, back to her as he settles himself on his stomach.

Rey sits at the table, her hands coming around the still warm mug of caf that Ben had brewed and she lifts it to drink it, trying to warm her damp bones. She sits back, her eyes resting on the bare expanse of his back once more, and watches, waiting.

After what feels like an eternity, she feels his force signature level out, finally calmed and soothed as he falls into a deep sleep.

* * *

 

Rey pours over the Jedi books that she stole while Ben sleeps. She takes out the broken pieces of her lightsaber, and reads, trying to understand as much as she can. Part of her worries that Ben won’t actually help her fix it, and she will be left with two options. Either she will be without a lightsaber, which will really put a kink in her plans, or she will be forced to fix it herself, even though she has no idea how.

When the sun finally breaks over the muggy horizon, bringing light into the cabin, Ben jolts awake. He pushes himself abruptly up off of his stomach, a surprised grunt forcing its way through his lips and he looks around wildly, almost panicked. Rey watches as his eyes dart around, before he looks over his shoulder at her, sitting at the table with her books spread in front of her. His eyes settle on the splintered lightsaber.

He turns his head away from her and she watches as his head dips down, and his shoulders rise at fall rapidly before he pushes himself up and climbs out of the bed.

He walks to the table, and stands opposite from her, his hair wild, his eyes sleepy. He looks rested, she notices. He barely had moved in his sleep, and she sees the creases from the sheets pressed into his chest and his face. He wipes a large hand down his face, sighing before he sits in the chair across from her.

She regards him for a moment as he looks at her books and her lightsaber.

“Will you help me?”

He doesn’t answer her for a long moment, his eyes moving to her face and he must find what he needs. He nods once.

“Put those books away,” he says at last, his voice heavy and thick with sleep. It makes Rey shiver. “Let’s begin.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess we are gonna fix a lightsaber next time!
> 
> Let me know what you think, as always. Your comments are the best thing ever, and always make me happy and life a lot better. <333
> 
> PS: In regard to my writers block. I wanted to try doing a prompt fic. No pressure on myself, but I often have little fleeting story ideas that aren't full fic length, but I'm often tempted to write little things here or there. I'm just... kind of inexperienced in how things like that work? Are there specific prompt tables people use? Do you just comment the prompts and go from there? SOMEONE HELP ME, lmao. If anyone cares to help me, message me on tumblr and hold my hand and guide me through this. [tumblr](http://darth-ernzo.tumblr.com)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you want to build a lightsaber?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends!
> 
> First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who has shown and interest in this story! It makes me smile every day, and now that I think I have my groove back when it comes to writing, I've had such a good time writing for this story again, as well as my other WIPs! (more on that below)
> 
> Secondly, the absolutely wonderful selun-chen drew this beautiful piece of Ben and Rey from Chapter 8, when they kiss in the ship. It's so lovely and it make my heart so full. I've never had fan art for any story before, and I am overwhelmed. Find it [ here](http://darth-ernzo.tumblr.com/post/173260688567/selun-chen-do-you-still-hes-staring-at) and show her so much love for being so amazing.

Ben was not being helpful. 

After Rey had cleared the table of everything except her broken lightsaber, she had expected Ben to jump right in and offer suggestions or tell her what she was missing. He didn’t.

She stared at him expectantly, her hands folded, eager for information now that he had agreed. However, he just glared at the broken saber for several minutes, before he reached for it. Her first instinct was to lurch forward and snatch it back before he could take it, but after a small jerk of her hand that earned her a raised eyebrow from Ben, she put her hands down into her lap and simply watched him.

He looked over the pieces for a few minutes, pulling the casing apart, looking inside and examining the broken legacy in his hands. He made thoughtful sounds here and there, until finally, he put the casings back on, and slid the halves back across the table toward Rey.

“It’s very broken.”

Rey stared at him, her brain hardly comprehending his words. Maybe she had missed something.

“What?”

“It’s very broken.”

Rey blinked.

“I heard you. I just don’t understand why you would say that. Clearly I know that.”

He simply shrugged, his handsome face taking on an unaffected countenance.

Rey felt her anger starting to bubble in her stomach.

“Are you going to help me fix it? You just said that you’d help me.”

He leaned his elbows on the table.

“I’m not sure if it’s fixable. The crystal is cracked clean in two.”

Rey tried to will herself not to get frustrated. This was the most he was offering her in a long time.

“Your crystal is cracked and yours still works.”

This seemed to bother him.

“Yes, well. That’s different.”

Rey’s eyebrows creased, and she shook her head in disbelief.

“How?” She demanded.

He huffed and leaned back heavily in his chair.

“Well, for starters, this crystal is broken completely. It’s in two pieces. It’s going to take a lot to mend it, and even then, it might not work properly even after it’s put back together. My crystal is only cracked. It’s cracked badly, but it’s still intact. And, I’m the one who cracked it in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

Ben reached up and scrubbed his hand roughly over his face.

“It’s hard to explain.”

He looked up at her, and Rey gasped as the memory of the night when Ben destroyed Luke’s temple. Rey saw Ben’s lightsaber, familiar hilt, but gleaming silver with a bright blue blade, as it flashed through the dark to come up and block the vivid green of Luke’s.

She saw another memory, unfamiliar, as she saw a younger Ben with his lightsaber taken apart and in pieces in front of him as he worked with tools and metal to craft a new lightsaber. One forged from the dark side.

Suddenly, Rey was back in the present, her mind jumbled and confused, infected by the emotions that Ben was feeling. Her neck felt warm.

“When you leave the light and embrace the dark side,” Ben began, his voice low and strained. “You cannot use lightsaber that was forged in the light.” He hesitated. “Well, you can. It is just painful and unpleasant. When the Sith existed, they would steal the lightsabers of the Jedi they killed and mediate through the Dark Side to change the allegiance of the crystal inside. They had to pull the crystal from the light in order to wield a lightsaber with that crystal that would obey a new master. It’s called ‘bleeding the crystal.’”

Rey shuddered. That sounded horrible.

“Some would do it to their own kyber crystal, Jedi that fell to the dark side. It’s a complicated process and can take days of mediation to be successful, especially if you must change the allegiance of the crystal. Sometimes, if you aren’t careful enough, the effort causes the crystal to crack.”

Rey took a moment to process everything that he was telling her. It was a lot of information, and it was honestly the most he had spoken to her in a very long time.

“And, that’s,” Rey took a deep shuddering breath, “that’s what happened to yours? That’s what happened after you burned the temple, and fell to the dark side? You meditated over your crystal, and it broke?”

Ben’s eyes moved over Rey’s face before he nodded.

“Okay,” Rey nodded too, finally understanding why Ben’s lightsaber terrified her. “Do you think that we could fix this one?”

Ben shrugged again. “Maybe. But, you might not have enough power to mend the crystal.”

This caused Rey to bristle. She stood from the table abruptly.

“I don’t have enough power? What does that even mean? I’ve bested you how many times?”

Ben looked alarmed and put his hands up, shocked.

“I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant that it might take more than just you to fix it. You haven’t learned how to focus your power yet, you never had a proper teacher. And I wasn’t sure if, well, you’ve made it very clear on _several_ occasions that you don’t want me to teach you anything…” he trailed off, his voice annoyed.

Rey sat back down in her chair, slowly. “Oh.”

Ben rolled his eyes, but looked at her warily, making sure that she wasn’t going to keep yelling.

Rey took a deep breath, her eyes falling to the splintered lightsaber. It struck her how much the saber on the table was a representation of them. Broken and unable to be mended alone. It appeared they would need each other to fix what was broken, in front of them and inside.

“I do need your help,” Rey says finally, her voice soft. “That’s why I asked.”

She hears him sigh, and she when she lifted her eyes to see him, she’s surprised at an almost tender look on his face.

“The only way I can see it working, is if we meditate together, over the crystal. I would be here more to guide you than anything else. It’s,” he hesitated, “It’s your crystal. It needs your influence the most.”

Rey nodded.

“Do you have spare parts?” Ben asked her, tapping the table by the saber. “The casing is destroyed and a few of the inner parts are burned out. I can fix those and,” his voice was softer, “I can show you how it all works.”

“Okay,” Rey breathed, unsure of what else to say. She was surprised at his sudden mood change, the sudden lift in his demeanor toward her. Had understanding finally passed between them?

“I have a few things, here in my bag. I knew that the casing was broken and that I would need to craft something new for the crystal, so I’ve been collecting parts and materials for a while now. I think,” Rey chewed her lip, feeling warm and shy all of a sudden. “I think I know how I’d like it to look—” Rey stopped short. “Wait. Is it possible to craft two light sabers from the cracked crystal? You said it’s in two pieces.”

His brow furrowed, and he looked at her. “What? Why two?”

She still felt embarrassed and shy at the thought of sharing the idea for the saber. It felt like a secret, almost like she would be revealing too much of herself if she told him what she wanted. “Would it be possible?” She pressed him.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if it would work as two crystals. I guess we could try, if it’s important to you. But, why, Rey? Why would you need two?”

Rey took a deep breath and reached forward to take the two pieces in her hands. “I’d like to make a sort of staff. Like a lightsaber and a staff. I’ve always used a staff to defend myself, and well, I thought if I could make this my own, I’d like it to sort of be double ended, and be able to block and use it like a staff.” She felt very silly, admitting this to him.

He was quiet for a long moment and Rey chanced a glance through her eyelashes at him. He was looking at her, almost in awe, his eyes staring at her with an intensity that she had not seen from him in a long time. Since the _Supremacy_.

Finally, he spoke.

“Rey, I don’t think you need two crystals to accomplish that. As long as the housing is correct, you can have a dual blade. It’s not unheard of, they were fairly common in the old days.”

Rey just nodded her head as she looked down at her hands. “But, what if,” she hesitated, unsure if she wanted to press the issue any further. There was more to her idea. More that she wanted from her weapon. “What if I wanted to make them… come apart?”

“Come apart?”

Rey stood, holding a piece of the broken lightsaber in each of her hands. She brought them together in front of her, holding them close, as if it were whole again, and brought her eyes to meet Ben’s. Then, suddenly, she twisted her stance slightly, bringing her hands back and to her sides, as of she had a blade lit in each hand. Ben’s eyes widened, in realization and surprise.

“You want to wield two sabers?” There was almost awe in his voice.

“Yes,” Rey said, feel confident and warm. It felt right, she felt the certainty bloom in her stomach, she could feel it. She knew Ben felt it too. “I want it to be a staff, that breaks apart into two separate pieces, so that I can change tact if I have to. A staff is a solid weapon, and I am very familiar with it, but it does have disadvantages. I want to be different and overcome those.”

Ben was looking at her the same way he had looked in the throne room, after they had killed the Praetorian Guard, the same what he had looked at her in the ship the night before. Like he wanted to kiss her and devour her.

“Yes,” he breathed, and Rey wasn’t sure what he was responding to. Was it her idea, or her thoughts?

She never got an answer, for he stood, moving around the table and coming to stop in front of her. He reached out, his hands covering hers and began to move them toward the center of the room, and down onto the floor in front of the fireplace. Rey’s blankets were still there, unused from the night before, and they settled on top of them, Ben never letting go of Rey’s hands. They sat across from each other, legs crossed, eyes locked on to each other in a stare that spoke what words could not say. The bond spoke for them, seeming to sing and float around them as it rejoiced, the dark and the light, coming together. Balance.

* * *

 

The happy feeling that moved between them evaporated very quickly. Rey had hoped that Ben finally agreeing to help would make everything come together perfectly with very minimal time and effort. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Together, they meditated over the crystal, visualizing and communing with the force. For hours. She tried to do it on her own, with just Ben’s presence to guide her at first, but it became clear that that wasn’t going to work. So, Ben took a more direct approach, using more of his control of the Force to guide the saber as it floated, moved, came apart and came together, and again and again, nothing happened.

After the third hour, Rey practically screamed in frustration before launching off the floor and moving away from him.

“Why isn’t this working?” She cried out, slamming her hands down on the counter top in the kitchen. She was hungry, tired, and her temper was evaporating with each passing moment.

“I don’t know,” came Ben’s equally frustrated voice. “Maybe it’s too damaged. Maybe the crystal isn’t repairable.”

“No!” Rey yelled as she whipped around again to face him, still sitting on the floor. “It calls to me! I can hear it when we are meditating, it’s calling and calling, and it gets louder as we get closer to having it all fit together, and then it’s just gone. I hear nothing, and it’s just quiet.”

Rey took a deep breath, moving back toward Ben, and dropping back onto the floor. She looked down at the pieces of the lightsaber and all of the spare parts that she had collected to repair it with. It was no more fixed than it had been hours ago, and she was starting to wonder if this had been a mistake.

“What am I doing wrong?” Her voice was soft, defeat creeping in.

“Maybe…” Ben began, his voice soft. “Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I’m influencing too much.”

Rey shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. It wasn’t working in the beginning either, before you started to use more of your power. It’s something else.”

Rey looked up at Ben and found him thoughtfully staring down at the floor between them. His knee was pulled up with his chin resting atop it, as his fingers trailed over the bits of metal before him. His thumb found the jagged edge of one half of the lightsaber, the faint glow of the crystal inside flickering as he touched it.

“Maybe,” he began again, his head cocking to the side as he glanced at her. His eyes were different than she had ever seen. Deep and contemplative, almost warm. “Maybe it’s both of us.”

Rey found herself leaning forward, wanting to be closer to him, to look deeper into his eyes. “What do you mean?”

He looked back down, his hair falling into his eyes. “We are hardly at peace with each other, are we? To craft a lightsaber, one must be at peace with how they are going to make their weapon, and with themselves. They must trust themselves to be able to make the weapon they will trust to protect them. This weapon is your life. Our lives… well.” He looked up at her, only flicking his eyes to hers for a moment before looking away again. “I’m hardly at peace with myself, and I still feel your uncertainty. And when it comes to our trust and balance with each other, we haven’t mended that, yet.” His voice was soft, and Rey was struck by how true his words were. She felt a change in him, there was a calmness she had never felt in his signature before. “We broke this lightsaber, together, as you pointed out. You’re right. We broke it because we couldn’t agree on what we were, on who we were. We still haven’t come to an agreement, so we can’t fix this yet.”

Rey sat in stunned silence. Of course, he was right; of course, that was the answer.

Ben snorted derisively, mostly to himself. “The Force always seems to have a sense of humor where I’m concerned. I feel like my grandfather is fucking with me. Not letting me fix his lightsaber until…” He shrugged, unwilling to finish the sentence.

A long moment stretched between them, an impasse. Neither knew how to move forward, how to answer the question that hung between them. Were they sorry for what had happened? Could they forgive each other, here and now? It seemed that there was no choice in the matter, the lightsaber would never be completed if they remained stubborn, avoiding the conflict between them. It seemed that the Force deemed this conflict more important than the conflict each of them felt inside.

Rey took a deep breath and closed her eyes, reaching into the Force, and moving toward Ben. Rey felt that she could forgive easier than him, she had already decided that she would. His choices were difficult ones, and she found herself understanding why he made them. Well, some of them.

But, could he forgive her?

“Rey,” Ben called softly, causing Rey to open her eyes. He shifted, crossing his legs once more and placing his hands palm up on his knees. “Please.”

She stared down at his hands, understanding his silent invitation. She knew what he meant, but there were heavier implications in his request. A plea, the same plea as before.

This time, she agreed.

Mirroring his position, she moved closer, ignoring the sting of the metal on the floor as it dug into her legs, and slid her hands over his. She braced herself for a sharp jolt of the Force, or another vision, but nothing came. Just the warmth from his skin, and the warmth from the Force as it began to flow through them.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

 

_There was nothing but grass, as far as the eye could see._

_Rey stood, in the center of this vast grass sea, her eyes searching for something, anything. But, there was nothing._

_The weather was pleasant, not too hot, not too cold, the sun high overhead. Not a cloud in the sky._

_It was idyllic, but Rey felt uncertain._

_“Rey,” a voice called. She knew that voice, but it sounded different than she remembered. It didn’t sound haunted or sad. It was low, but it caused a shiver to run down her spine. “Rey,” it called again._

_“Yes,” she breathed, turning to try to find the source of the voice. She wasn’t sure why, but she was compelled to find it. But, where was it? Her eyes searched the horizon in every direction, but there was nothing but green. Never ending green._

_“Hello?” Rey asked, beginning to move in an arbitrary direction._

_“I can’t find you,” the voice called back._

_“I’m here,” Rey said, desperate for the voice to understand. “I’m right here. Where are you?”_

_“I’m here too, but I can’t find you.” The sadness was returning, and Rey began to feel a panic creep in around her throat._

_“What do you see?” She asked._

_“An ocean,” the voice told her._

_Rey sighed. “I see grass. No ocean. You aren’t here.” She was disappointed._

_“My ocean is green,” the voice whispered. “A never ending green ocean.”_

_Maybe…_

_“Maybe we are seeing the same thing.”_

_Rey heard the rustle of grass behind her, and she turned sharply, to find Ben, tall and broad, turning to look at her at the same time, as if he had been standing behind her the whole time. He was dressed in light colors, a gauzy shirt that billowed in the breeze, and ruffled his hair against his face. She had never seen anything more beautiful._

_“Found you,” he whispered, his hands coming to cradle her face._

_“We were looking at the same thing, we just saw it differently,” Rey whispered, her hands moving up his arms before gripping his elbows. She longed to be pulled into the warmth of his arms._

_Everything felt easy here, uncomplicated._

_“A green ocean,” he murmured._

_“A field of grass,” she countered, with a smile._

_“They are the same thing,” he reasoned._

_“Perspective matters, I guess.”_

_“It does,” he agreed._

_“It’s okay to see things differently; to disagree.”_

_“As long as we don’t get lost, even when we are right in front of each other.”_

_“I wasn’t lost,” Rey protested._

_“No, I was,” Ben whispered, like a confession, and his lips brushed against hers, warm like the sun above them; as gentle as the grass that tickled their ankles in the breeze._

* * *

 

When Rey’s eyes snapped open, she gasped at the sight before her. There, hanging between them, was the completed lightsaber. It gleamed in the light from the window, almost as if there was an aura around it that hummed and glowed. Rey stared in awe, first at the saber and then, past it, at Ben, his eyes flickering between the newly crafted weapon and Rey.

Slowly, she pulled one of her hands from where Ben was still holding it in his lap, and she reached out to pluck the saber from the air. It felt hot in her hand, almost vibrating as she held it for the first time before it settled and cooled in her hand. It felt like it belonged.

She brushed her thumb against the ignition, barely trusting herself to light it. If it wasn’t constructed right, the thing would blow up in her face. But, she knew it was right.

She pressed the switch, and the sword sprung to life, the familiar hum of the blade making Rey feel warmth spread into her toes. The Force _sang_ around her, as if rejoicing and congratulating her for cracking the code and mending more than just the lightsaber. She took a deep breath, and turning her hand, pressed the second switch, causing the opposite blade to appear. A grin spread over her face, and her eyes found Ben’s again, joy and happiness filling the room. Even he was happy, she could feel it through the Force, a sense of pride and pleasure spreading from him to her.

“Ben,” she breathed, and before she could say another word, he launched at her, his mouth finding hers roughly, causing the lightsaber to fall from her hand and turn off. Her hand, now free, weaved its way into the thick hair at the base of his neck.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't throw things at me, please! I have two ideas in mind for where the next chapter is headed, so I have to decide how slow the burn is really going to be...
> 
> A few people have asked about [ Bloodflower](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13688766). I am happy to announce that I will be working on the next installment this week, and I hope to have it posted by next week, because I will be off from work for my birthday, so I will have a bit of time to really work on it. Keep your eyes open if you are looking for more of that story!
> 
> And, if you missed it, I've finally posted a story for prompts. It's called [Hallelujah](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14377533), and I'll be filling prompts there often to keep myself writing on a (hopefully) daily basis.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey is tired a lot in this chapter. 
> 
> Rey is me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back!
> 
> I hope everyone is still around, I know I've been taking a while between updates, but I am trying to be better! Thank you to everyone who commented last chapter, and continues to support me and be there for me, even when I don't feel worthy of it. It means everything to me.
> 
> This chapter is admittedly a bit of filler, so I apologize if the pace feels off. I needed to get us over the hump to be on our way to our destination. We are almost there!

Relief runs through Rey’s body as Ben’s lips move over hers. Relief that makes way for exhaustion. Her body is so tired, having not slept the night before so that Ben could, and now, with her lightsaber complete after hours of mental torture, her whole body feels too heavy.

Everything feels so nice, though. The way his body covers hers, the way she can feel his body heat against her skin, his lips against hers. His lips, she decides, she wants to feel them forever. But she’s too tired to keep up.

Ben must sense it, because the intensity of his kisses slow, and his hands, which had been gripping and squeezing anywhere that they could grab, move tenderly to her waist. He plants one hand on the floor next her head, and breaks away, lifting himself to look down at her.

Rey looks up at him for a moment, feeling awe through her exhaustion, red lips and dark eyes, his hair, longer than she’d realized, dropping down to cover his face. And then she yawns.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs around her yawn, trying to reach back for him.

“You’re tired,” he says back, his tone gentle. “It’s okay.”

“No, no,” Rey tries to protest, her hands coming up to touch his shoulders. She is tired, very much so, but kissing Ben, finally kissing him like this, seems more important than rest.

He must follow her thoughts, which normally would annoy her but for some reason right now it doesn’t, because a small smile twitches over his lips before he lets her pull him down to her once more. However, he dodges her mouth as she raises up her head, instead ghosting a kiss over her cheek before he moves to press his mouth firmly to her forehead, a clear dismissal. Rey makes a noise of protest.

“I don’t think I’d enjoy you falling asleep while I kissed you,” he reasons quietly, but a softness comes to his eyes, “At least not tonight.” Rey wants to complain, insisting that she wouldn’t fall asleep, but something tells her there might be a grain of truth in his statement, but she doesn’t feel like it’s altogether a bad thing. The thought of him kissing her until she fell asleep sounds lovely.

She feels indecision flowing through the bond, but ultimately, she feels his resolve and he pulls away from her, moving to stand, his hand going to his hair. Her hands fall limply to the floor.

“Why don’t you try to rest for a bit?” He asks, his eyes flickering to the bed briefly before offering his hand to help her up. “I can make dinner in a while.”

Rey takes his hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet easily. Once she’s standing, she feels just how tired she is. She feels like she’s made of lead, her whole body too heavy, too slow. She makes to reach for her new lightsaber from the floor, but wobbles, and she feels Ben’s hands come around her again to steady her.

“It’s okay, Rey. I’ve got it.”

Rey feels like she should be confused about the tone of voice she hears, but she’s rapidly becoming too exhausted to function. She simply nods, and he helps steer her to the bed. Only then does her brain gain enough energy to protest.

“Wait, no. This is your—” Rey feels alert, her fight-or-flight response kicking in.

“Rey, stop.” His voice is firm, but calm. “Just rest here for a bit, it’s all right.”

The images of their shared vision flash through her mind, and she hears him make a noise, before he’s pushing her more firmly onto the bed. “Just rest. You’re exhausted.”

The fight left in her dies, and she allows herself to fall back onto the bed. It’s comfortable and she sinks into it, feeling sleep coming to her, with the smell of him wrapping around her like a blanket.

 

* * *

 

She’s awoken some time later to the sound of a crackling fire, with an enticing smell filling the cabin. When she opens her eyes, she sees Ben, squatting low next to the fire, a pan set over the open flame. She watches for a moment as he cooks, turning periodically to place whatever it is he’s cooking on a plate next to him.

“I know you’re awake,” he states softly, never looking up from his task. Rey looks at his face, startled, and sees the corner of a smile start to spread over the profile of his face.

“It smells good,” Rey offers, sitting up on the bed. She still feels tired, but she’s warm. And hungry.

“It’s nearly ready; come sit at the table.”

She complies, standing and stretching her tired muscles over her head before moving to sit at the table.

She feels undead, a hazy consciousness that hangs over her, not really awake, but not really asleep, as she waits for him to join her at the table. The past two days have drained her of everything she has, and even though it had been nice to sleep, she almost feels like she hasn’t slept at all. Her eyes burn, and her limbs feel too heavy and she feels disoriented and weirdly giddy. She’s barely aware when Ben places a plate in front of her, the aroma wafting into her nose, and she closes her eyes to let the warm smell roll over her. She wonders if this is what it feels like to be drunk.

“No,” Ben tells her, but then he shrugs when her tired eyes find his. “Well, maybe. Being drunk depends on the person, I think.” He moves to sit across from her, and Rey feels strangely confused. Is he—is he making small talk with her? Chatting?

He laughs, “Maybe this is what you’d be like when you’re drunk. Your thoughts are _loud_.”

Rey ignores him, digging into the food in front of her with relish. It’s been over a day since she’s eaten, and she’s become unaccustomed to the hunger pains in her stomach.

She moans in delight when the food touches her mouth. Hot food; freshly cooked food. It’s been a long time since she’s had anything that wasn’t a ration pack.

He’s looking at her with an odd expression when she looks up to ask him what it is. Through the bond she feels—surely not?

He clears his throat awkwardly, moving his attention to his own plate. “It’s just fish I’ve caught from the water. It’s nothing special,” he replies to her thoughts once more. “It’s all I’ve eaten in weeks.”

Rey chews slowly, watching his face, her eyes squinting. “There’s some food on the ship, if you’d like,” she tells him, still trying to figure out the source of the feeling that traveled across the bond. “Standard rations, and some other things.”

His eyes find hers again and he nods, and Rey can’t help but notice a small tint of pink on his pale cheeks. 

“Ben, what—” she starts to ask, but she’s caught off guard as images flash through her mind. She sees herself, eating, and moaning, and suddenly she’s gripping the edge of the table, panting as if she’s run across the desert. She feels warm, stifling, and she watches as he stands abruptly from the table and moves to sit on the bed. He drops his head to his hands.

Rey stares at him, and the feelings dissipate from her body as quickly as they came. She cools, her breaths slow, and her head becomes her own once more. Slowly, she lifts the fork to take another bite of her dinner, her eyes remaining trained on Ben, as his shoulders rise and fall quickly.

She’s… aware of how he feels, since he had pressed her against the side of the ship. She feels the same way, but she’s never felt arousal so strongly in her life. She’s felt things before, felt things about Ben, a soft feeling of want that fills the lower part of her abdomen. It had taken her a long time to pinpoint what that feeling was, what it actually meant. There had been very few individuals that incited a response, any response, in her life before she met Finn, so when she started to feel _something_ for Ben, she wasn’t sure what she had been feeling in the first place. The first time, she’s almost ashamed to admit it, was the first time she saw his face. When he’d stood before her, as she was strapped to a torture device, and removed his mask, she had been confused, startled, and she attributed the flutter in her chest to those things. Only later, when she had seen him through the bond, with his chest bare, did she recognize the feelings of desire that had first started in the interrogation chamber on Starkiller Base.

And then, she had gone to him, the feeling in the elevator as they spoke softly to each other, and the way he had looked at her after the battle had been over. She could feel it, simmering as he stared at her. But now, here in the small, warm cabin, alone on a planet in the middle of nowhere, she felt his desires more acutely than she had ever felt them inside of herself.

She reaches out, and finds that she can’t feel anything from him, he’s blocking her entirely. She eats in silence—too hungry to ignore a plate of hot food in front of her—trying to avoid making any more noises as she eats.

She wants him, but it scares her. She had been so tired earlier, but she had wanted to kiss and touch, and she wonders, if he feels this strongly about her moaning while she eats, how would they have ever stopped if it hadn’t been for her exhaustion.

She’s suddenly very glad that they did, because the enormity of what this pulsing heartbeat between them means, something tells her they should talk about it first, before something happens. Before their vision becomes a reality.

Then it dawns on her.

Their vision is a reality. It might become a reality tomorrow, or it might be months, but there’s a reason it does become their future. The Ben and Rey in their vision know each other, they understand each other, they respect each other. The people they were when they first shared the vision, angry in her bedroom, they weren’t ready to accept that version of the future. Now, though, now here in this cabin, having mended her lightsaber _, together_ , this version of them, they could be together. They could find peace, they could find balance. They could find each other in the vastness of the Force, always. Like what the Force had shown them when they fought to mend the lightsaber. They just needed to be willing to look, to find each other, even when the perspective was skewed.

When Rey’s eyes find Ben again, she sees that he has slipped from the bed to the floor, his head still in his hands, elbows on his raised knees.

She suddenly feels awake, more alive than she had only minutes ago. She wonders what turmoil he has been putting himself though in his mind, and she rises from the chair and moves to join him on the floor.

“Ben,” she whispers to him, her hand coming to rest on his bicep and she curls to his side. He remains unmoving, and she finally feels something from him, a tremor of uncertainty, and to her surprise, embarrassment.

“Ben,” she says again, this time with a tone of reassurance. “I feel it, too.”

He lifts his head to look at her, a look of disbelief clouding his features. She moves to brush his hair from his eyes, and she’s feeling the slightly giddy, over tired feeling once more. The familiarity that has grown between them in their short time together here on Voss should scare her, but it’s easy, like they’ve always been like this.

He looks away from her, his eyes finding the fire in front of them again, as his head shakes back and forth softly.

“Rey,” his voice is low. “Why are you here?”

“For you,” she whispers. That’s the truest reason. There are many nuances to that answer, but it’s the most succinct.

He looks back at her, his eyes full of intensity and emotion. She feels the weight of it, but she’s unable to pick at each individual strand.

“What do you want from me?”

His voice is barely audible, and she draws in a deep breath, shuddering under the weight of his emotion. She pulls herself into his lap, her back braced against his thighs as she rests her hands on his shoulders.

“Do you trust me?” She asks, her inhibitions lost in her tired state. She leans forward and presses her forehead to his. His arms come around her, tightening and pulling her closer.

“I want to,” he breathes. “I want to so badly. I’m just—”

His grip tightens, and he opens the bond again fully, letting her feel everything that he’s feeling. She gasps, her arms circling around his neck as she rolls her forehead against his, feeling the damp skin stick to hers.

He’s afraid: images of his parents leaving him behind. Images of Luke above him, bathed in a sinister green light. Images of Snoke, and pain courses through Rey’s body with this corresponding image. She sees red. She’s surrounded by red. A red lightsaber, red glow around a catwalk. She sees Han Solo as he reaches up to touch Ben’s face before he falls away. Rey shudders as a pain rips through her chest, and she feels Ben shuddering.

She sees her own face, image after image of her speeding rapidly through her mind before it all stops, and she sees her own face, crying, more red in the throne room. She hears her own voice, _Don’t go this way, Ben._ He lifts his hand to her and she, too, falls away.

Rey pulls back sharply, looking down at his face, and she sees the dim light of the room glisten off tear tracks down Ben’s face.

“Rey, I just—”

Rey just nods, feeling tired again, and she leans forward to press her cheek to the top of his head. “Shhh, Ben. I know.”

They hold each other, there on the floor for a long time. The fire goes out, the embers burning in the fireplace. There is nothing between them, just the gentle hum of the bond as the Force passes around them.

She feels his arms tighten again, and then he loosens them as Rey moves back. He looks up at her, his eyes seemingly black in the dark of the room, and Rey reaches to tuck his hair behind his ear.

“Yes,” he whispers into the dark.

She’s tired, so tired, but she leans forward and presses her mouth to his and kisses him until she can’t discern reality from dream.

 

* * *

 

Rey feels a warm hand on her shoulder when she wakes again, and she blinks rapidly, her eyes trying to focus in the near dark.

“Rey,” Ben whispers, his hand moving down her arm to grip at her wrist softly. “Rey, wake up.”

She rolls over, looking up at his form in the dark. He’s dressed, his lightsaber at his hip, a bag thrown over his shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” She half rises off the bed, her heart racing as adrenaline starts to pump. Are they in danger?

His fingers leave her arm and brush against her cheek.

“If you want to go to your ship, we need to leave now, before the sun rises. The humidity will be too much once the sun is up, and the journey out there will be brutal.”

Rey grunts, flopping back down onto the bed--she’s in his bed again--roughly. She rolls away from him, trying to burrow back into the blankets, muttering grumpily. She hears him laugh, a true laugh that floats through the darkness like velvet.

“Rey.”

This time his voice is stern, or at least trying to be, like he’s addressing a petulant child.

“You must be tired of fish if you are willing to get up before dawn to journey into the wilderness for _ration_ packs,” Rey says, as she finally sits up, brushing her hair away from her face.

He chuckles again, before moving away from the bed.

“Well, I thought you might like to try out your new lightsaber, too. Those caves stay cool in the day time, and it will be a nice place to practice and spar.” She hears a change in his voice; he suddenly sounds shy. “If you want to, I mean. Practice. With me.”

She swings her legs off the bed and stands. “Yes, I do want that. Very much.”

She sees him nod in the dark, before he moves to hand her a warm cup of caf. “I thought you’d like a cup before we left,” he says softly, and Rey wishes that she could see his face.

Something had changed last night. It was what they had been heading toward since the day he had appeared, sitting in her shower. It really had been what they had been heading toward since the first time the Force connected them on Ahch-To, if Rey was being honest with herself. But now, as she glances at him in the dark, taking in his large silhouette, she has to admit that they were both changed irrevocably. And she wasn’t unhappy about it.

He was softer than she had thought, under that cold, spiky exterior. Since she’d arrived, he had been gentle, kind, and once they had stopped yelling at each other, he had been remarkably warm to her. And the kisses they had shared, Rey feels a tremor shoot through her as she lifts the mug to her mouth, taking a deep sip to warm herself.

She pulls her boots on, and her bag, and when she turns to ask him where her lightsaber is, she finds it in his hand, raised in offering to her. She takes it from him, reverently, feeling the weight and balance of it in her hand. It feels warm, again, and the feeling spreads though her, from her fingers all the way down to her toes. It feels right, and the Force hums around them.

“Let’s go,” Ben murmurs, and she can feel him, too, warm and overwhelmed by the energy around them.

* * *

 

They set off into the darkness, just as the first rays of light begin to peek over the horizon. It’s not a far walk, Rey remembers, but she’s glad that he insisted on going before the oppressive humidity set in for the day. He’s tense, alert, as they traverse the landscape, and she mirrors his tension as she falls into step with him.

“What’s out here?” Rey asks quietly, her hand resting on the hilt of her saber at her hip.

Ben steps closer, his hand coming to the small of her back to direct her down a slope. “Not much anymore, but I have seen a few Uxibeasts since I’ve been here, and I wouldn’t want to startle one out here in the dark.”

“What is that?” Rey asks, her eyes scanning the terrain in front of them, hunting for anything out of the ordinary. “An Uxibeast?”

“Hmmm,” Ben murmurs, as they move, and Rey can see the mouth of the cave come into sight as they round a corner. “Used to be herds of them here on Voss, big stupid things. Horns and spines, and they will charge anything they see. I had always thought that all of the fauna on Voss was gone, since the planet was leveled by the Empire. But, I guess a few of them are still hanging on, and they are all pretty pissed to see anyone in their territory.” He blows out a breath and Rey laughs.

“Have you had to run for your life?”

He glances down at her wryly, before a small smile plays across his mouth. “Once or twice.”

She laughs again, and she feels his hand slide higher on her back as they descend into the mouth of the cave. The sun is rising quickly, and she’s relieved when they enter the cool damp air of the cave.

She walks up the gangway into her ship, and gestures down the corridor to the small kitchen on-board. “The rations are down that way, if you want to go look. There should be some other food too; we can bring it all back with us to the cabin. I’m going to go check the messages in the cockpit.”

He hesitates before nodding once, and heading away from her, disappearing through the door. She feels something from him, but the feeling is fleeting, gone before she can grasp on to it.

Heading into the cockpit, she sees the flashing green light on the console that indicates a message. Sitting in the chair heavily, she scrolls through, seeing more than one message, several from Finn, and two from Leia. The first is simply a confirmation of her first message, when she had landed on Voss and found Ben. The next few from Finn are all simply updates on life back at the base, and Rey smiles as Finn recounts how he finally beat Poe at cards, and how much he misses her. He asks her to come home soon.

The final message from Leia requires Rey to enter her security clearance code, which gives her pause. Surely, Leia knows that Ben is with her, why would she insist on a code to open the message? Rey glances back at the opening of the cockpit, and sees no sign of Ben, so she quickly inputs her code and watches as the message scrolls in front of her. Her eyes widen.

The plan, the schematics, everything, is laid out in front of her. The mission is clear to go on Rey’s signal. Everything now lays in her hands, and ultimately, Ben’s, if she can get him on her side. At the bottom, the message from Leia concludes with a warning that makes Rey feel cold all over.

_Everything is ready on your word. Time sensitive, and we don’t have much time left. Please Rey, this is our only shot at bringing Hux and the First Order down._

“What is that?”

Rey jumps, a small shout bursting out of her mouth as she slams her hand down on the console, closing the message out from the screen. She whirls to look at him, eyes wide and slightly out of breath.

“Rey.”

His eyes are dark once more, and the expression on his face is one of doubt and suspicion, only mirrored by the distrust she suddenly feels from him filtering across the bond.

“It’s, it’s nothing,” Rey tries to lie, but she knows she’s a terrible liar to begin with, and her reaction is hardly of someone who isn’t trying to hide something.

His eyes narrow and he steps toward her, and she’s suddenly afraid of him again, like the last time they were in this very ship.

“Rey,” he repeats, coming to stand in front of her. “What was that?”

She stares at him, her breath still coming too quickly. She thinks of the past two days, she thinks of the way he kissed her after they built her lightsaber. She thinks of the question she asked him last night, and his answer.

She makes her decision.

“Do you trust me?” She asks him again, this time, the question asks a heavier question than before.

His eyes widen, and he takes half a step back from her, his eyes searching her face, his mind searching through the Force.

He hesitates.

“Yes.”

Her breath calms, and her eyes flutter closed as the Force pulses around them. She sees the grassy ocean once more, and when she opens her eyes, she sees Ben looking down at her, his eyebrows furrowed. She turns, pressing the button on the console once more.

“Read this and think about your answer again.”

His eyes flicker to the message and then back to her face, before he steps closer to read the screen. She watches as his eyes dart back and forth, and she sees his eyes widen, and his expression changes to sheer disbelief before he turns back to her. His mouth opens and closes, words fail him.

“Do you trust me?”

He looks back at the message on the console, and when he turns to her again, she sees a desperation in his eyes, almost a plea.

“This is why you came here?”

Rey stands, reaching her hand to him. He does not move, but he does not step away.

“This is one of the reasons. You know why I came here, Ben.”

She opens her mind, and the images of them float between them. The little boy laughing in the grass. She lets it all flow through, she lays all of her cards on the table, for him and for herself.

She points to the screen. “We have to do _this,_ if we are ever going to have that.”

His mouth is parted, his eyes wide. Panic, indecision.

And then, resolve.

His tongue darts out to wet his lips before he, finally, nods.

“Yes.”

 

* * *

 

General Trestle hurries into the war room, causing Supreme Leader Hux to roll his eyes. Too eager.

“Yes, General. To what do we owe this interruption?” Hux drawls, waving his hand causally, gesturing for the General to get on with whatever he finds to be so important.

“I am so sorry, Supreme Leader, but I have urgent information that I thought was important enough to interrupt.”

Hux leans forward. “Well, out with it.”

Trestle looks around at the present company in the room, hesitating slightly, his collar feeling too tight, the room feeling too warm.

“This information is of a rather,” he clears his throat. “A rather sensitive nature, Supreme Leader.”

Hux waves his hand, his eyes never leaving the General. “Everyone out,” he commands, and the occupants of the room scurry like womp-rats, clearing the room in a heartbeat.

When the room is silent, Hux leans his elbows on the table. “Yes, General?”

Trestle takes a deep breath. “There’s been contact with a bounty hunter in the Outer Rim. They claim to have Ren, and are asking for a high bounty for him.”

Hux’s eyes narrow. “Oh, well good. I’m glad we have the word of an Outer Rim bounty hunter.”

“Sir, Supreme Leader, please. There’s a holo attached as proof.”

Trestle steps forward, pressing a small button on the table and pulling up the file in question. Hux’s eyes widen, his fingers grip the edge of the table, his stomach doing a flip.

There, hanging above the table, is the image of Kylo Ren, in shackles on the floor of a ship.

“Pull out every division,” Hux commands hoarsely. “Turn this ship around and meet at the rendezvous coordinates supplied. We go alone. Tell no one of our mission until I see this _scum_ for myself.”

Trestle nods his head.

“Now!” Hux barks, sending the General scurrying out the door like everyone else.

A sneer spreads across his face, and suddenly, he feels like laughing, a harsh cackle filling the empty room.

Hux feels victory in his grasp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk how to write them being soft with each other with having them make out. 
> 
> If anyone is interested! I wrote a little one-shot (it's technically two chapters because of prompts) as a continuation of Exile in my prompt fic! Many of you guys had expressed that they wanted to see more of Ben and Rey from there, and I wrote a little thing that's fluffy and smutty from that universe! Check it out starting [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14377533/chapters/33387402) the second part follows in the chapter immediately after. Please feel free to prompt in that story, I really enjoy writing those little ficlets!
> 
> And finally, Bloodflower is still in the works! I currently have 2289 words of Part 3 written, and now that I have updated this story, Bloodflower is next on my list, I promise! ~~oh my god, but how do you write a wedding??!?!?!~~  
>  xoxox love you all!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, we're back again :)

For three days, they train.

In the cover of the cave, they work, training, sparring and Rey learned the ins and outs of her new lightsaber.

After Ben had agreed to the plan set forth by Leia, they had decided it would be best to work and prepare for what was to come. It still made Rey’s stomach drop at the thought.

Now, here, on day three, Rey swings her blades with deadly precision, dropping into each form smoothly, and moving quickly toward the target Ben had set up for her.

Except, she was still a little awkward at separating her blades from a staff to two separate sabers.

As she runs, she tries to separate them smoothly, but fumbles, nearly running into to the stack of rocks Ben had set up for her. She screams in frustration as one of the blades falls to the ground with a clatter.

“It’s all right,” Ben calls from the sidelines. He had removed his shirt and was squatting low, his elbows resting on his knees as he watched her, his own lightsaber in his hand. “Try again.”

“No,” she fumes, rounding on him. He watches her, unaffected by her anger, his face calm as she stalks toward him. “This isn’t going to work. I was a fool to think I could do it.”

When she stops in front of him, her eyes follow him as he rises smoothly to his feet and looks at her, his eyes soft. She hates it.

“This is a new fighting style to you. It would take a normal person weeks to master such a complex fighting style. It’s only been three days, Rey.”

She groans, moving away from him, linking the separate hilts back together and clenching it in her fist.

“Maybe two sabers doesn’t work,” Rey sulks, “Maybe I’m not meant to master it.”

Ben moves to stand behind her. “The Force allowed you to build it this way, it means you are meant to use it. And, you are hardly the first to wield two sabers.”

Rey turns around quickly at this.

“What do you mean?”

Ben moves to sit on a rock, lifting a canteen of water to his mouth. After taking a large mouthful, he offers it to her.

“Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice was a famous wielder of two sabers.”

Rey walks forward and takes the canteen from him. “I wasn’t aware he had taken any apprentices. Was this after he was Darth Vader? Maybe it’s a dark side thing.”

Ben shakes his head. “No, he had one apprentice when he was a Jedi. She was a Torguta and she fought along side him in the Clone Wars.”

Rey sits down next to him, her eyes on the ground.

“What happened to her? Did she die…” Rey trails off. She knows what had happened to the Jedi.

“No,” Ben whispers softly. “She was expelled from the Jedi Order before the fall of the Old Republic. She was framed for a crime she didn’t commit, and ultimately she no longer trusted the Order, even when her name was cleared.”

There was a long silence between them, only the distant sounds of water dripping in the cave echoed around them.

“How do you know all of this?” Rey wonders aloud. Surely, all of this would have been lost when the Republic fell, over fifty years ago.

Ben looks at Rey and smiles. It’s a tight smile, not quite reaching his eyes. “She knew my mother.”

This surprises Rey. “How?”

“Ahsoka helped start the Rebellion against the Empire. She knew my mother when my mother was just a princess from Alderaan, but, long before my mother knew she was the daughter of Vader.”

Rey can’t find words for all of this. Ben had never shared much of his past before, or his family’s past for that matter.

“You should ask my mother about her, sometime,” Ben says, his voice light, but Rey can’t help but notice the deeper implications of this. Especially in light of their mission ahead.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this,” Rey asks, turning her body to face him, her hand coming up to pick at a loose thread on his pants. “With this plan?”

He hums and nods his head. “I guess I have to be, at this point. We already sent the holo of me tied up on the floor.” He shoots her a wry look before the corners of his mouth quirked up.

She laughs, nudging his arm with hers. “Sorry about that.”

He smiles at her again before looking away, out into the cave.

“Are you sure,” Rey asks again, her voice soft. “You didn’t trust me when I came here, what’s changed?”

Rey had been wondering, over the past few days, what had changed for him. She knew what changed for her and being near him had only intensified it. But, she wondered what had been different for him over the past week that made him change from the angry and mistrustful man she’d met on the beach. He’d kept his feelings guarded, those feelings at least. Otherwise, he had grown to be an open book with Rey. Sometimes, they barely spoke aloud, when they were sparring or working around the cabin to prepare for each day. The thread of their minds just worked seamlessly, and words were unnecessary.

He sighs, running one hand up and down his exposed forearm. “Someone has always used me for something. And I seem to always let everyone down. Everyone uses me, everyone leaves,” he shrugs one shoulder. “Except you.”

Rey stares at him, her mouth hanging open slightly at his words. “But, I did leave. You haven’t stopped telling me that I left.” She doesn’t mean to sound antagonistic, she doesn’t want to rile him up about it, but she can’t help but be surprised at his words. He’s been angry at her for _months_ for leaving him on the _Supremacy_ , comparing her to almost everyone else in his life, and now, he’s changing his tune?

Looking away, she sees his teeth pressing into his lip as he gazes out in the cave again.

“Yes, well,” he hesitates, a large hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “Upon a bit of reflection,” his eyes dart to the side to look at her quickly. “It would appear that was a bit, ah, _unfair_ of me?” He ends the statement like a question.

Rey continues to stare at him, in sheer disbelief.

He looks at her nervously, his jaw working before he stands up abruptly.

“Come on, let’s keep practicing.”

Rey watches him walk to the middle of the cave before he turns around to face her, seeing that she hasn’t moved to join him.

“What…” is all Rey can seem to say, she can’t seem to comprehend the change that’s come over him. It was more than she could have fathomed.

He puts his hands on his hips, and she watches as he seems to scowl at the ceiling of the cave. She sees him muttering under his breath, and she feels so much… turmoil from him. He huffs a breath and moves to walk back toward her.

“Listen,” he begins. “I know that I’ve been—difficult is probably not a good enough word—but I haven’t been fair to you. You came here, even when I told you not to. You came to find me, came to do something, when I didn’t know I needed help, when I didn’t _want_ help. I want to help you,” he takes a deep breath. “I want to help _you_.”

He takes a step closer. “I owe you that much.”

Rey stands, moving as close as she dares, her hand coming up to trace the spot where his scar curls over his collarbone. She feels his breathing hitch and falter.

She tilts her head back and looks up into his face. “You don’t owe me anything, Ben.”

His eyes dart back and forth as he looks down at her, reading her face, and she feels warmth from him. “I’ve done nothing but blame everyone else, for the things that I have done. I need to come to terms with my actions and how it’s effected the things around me. I never gave you a chance. I blame you for making the smarter choice because it meant not being with me. I get that. I get that, now.”

Rey smiles lightly, lifting her hand to play with the long hairs that cover his eye. She pushes it back behind his ear, her fingers brushing lightly over the skin there as she exposes it. “You can blame others in your life for _some_ things,” she turns her eyes to his. “Many people who cared about you have done terrible things.”

He shakes his head, his hand slipping around her hip and his fingers spreading over her lower back. “You were right; I can’t keep falling back on that anymore.”

Rey just nods her head at him, allowing him to vent the way he feels. She watches as he licks his lips and leans his head forward. “I want to be better. I want to be the person in that vision. I want…”

He trails off and Rey’s stomach swoops as he leans in to press his lips against hers. She inhales sharply through her nose, pushing up on her toes as her arms move around his neck. He groans into her mouth, bringing his arms tightly around her back to pull her flush against his chest.

The past few days have ended in very tense nights.

By the time night sets in, they are generally both exhausted. But, whenever the fire dies and their eyes move to the bed, a tension fills the air. An electricity begins to crackle as everything that continues to remain unspoken passes between them.

Ben will always insist that she takes the bed, always murmuring softly that he doesn’t mind sleeping on the floor. Each night, she’s wanted to protest, even ask him to join her in the bed, but she loses her nerve. Instead, opting to sit with him on the floor until she’s tired enough to fall asleep.

He lets her, curling his large frame around her as they lay close, talking softly; sometimes about the mission ahead, or sometimes he opens up and tells her what it was like growing up the son of Leia and Han. She doesn’t press, just letting him tell her what he feels comfortable divulging before, usually, he abruptly cuts himself off and she feels his anger and resentment flow through the bond.

Those are the times that she’s kissed him, softly to take away his pain, but soft turned to eager and to passion very quickly. And desperation. It was getting more and more difficult each night to stop, as the weight of their mission loomed ahead. Would they ever get the chance? Would they make it out alive?

Now, here in the cave, Ben’s hands gripping and squeezing along her sides, one hand coming up to grab her face as he pulls back slightly, panting against her mouth. She’s gripping the bare skin of his shoulders, pulling herself as close as she can despite the difference in height. He pulls back, dipping to kiss her again and again before he sighs, pulling back completely and moving his lips to her forehead.

Rey’s eyes flutter closed, and her fingers tighten further on his shoulders, tight enough to leave impressions against his pale skin. She licks her lips, tilting her head against his mouth as she tries to control the harsh tone of her breathing. How did he have such control? How was he always able to stop?

“It’s not easy,” he breathes against her sweaty forehead, and she groans, moving her head away from his lips to press her face into his chest, inhaling deeply. His lips, not content to be separated from her, move to press into the crown of her head, as his arms came around her again.

“Why though,” Rey asks, almost surprising herself. They had seen the visions, why should they stop? The same unanswered question from the past few days filters between them. Why should they keep themselves from this when they were heading into a scenario with less than stellar odds? Surely, they should allow themselves this?

She feels him sigh against her hair before he pulls away. Those dark intense eyes burning as he lowers his head to look more closely at her face, his shoulders hunching as be bends forward.

“If I let myself have this,” his hand comes up to brush a loose hair from her face, “I will never board that ship tomorrow. And I won’t let you, either. I need to motivate myself to do this, to live, for you. To help you, to help us.”

His lips brush against hers, causing her lashes to flutter. “Let me have something to live for; let me fight to have you when this is all over.”

Rey’s eyes pinch shut. “You do have me,” she whispers, her voice small. She wonders if he could even hear her. Didn’t he already know?

He pulls her to his chest again, his lips finding her temple as her fingers draw patterns on his chest.

“When it’s all over, we can come back here. We can be alone without any of this hanging over us. Deal?”

Rey nods her head, but turns to look up at him, her chin against his chest. “You’ll be free to do whatever you want, and you want to come back _here_?”

He laughs, shaking his head. “I think it meant something, what we saw in the vision. It was in that cabin; I want to do what the Force tells me to do, for once.”

Rey hums, and feels a shiver run through her that had nothing to do with temperature. After a moment, Ben squeezes her once before he steps back.

“C’mon. Let’s spar some more. There’s still a few hours of daylight to get you used to that saber.”

The rest of the afternoon is spent locked in heated battle, savage sparring, neither of them holding back as they exert their frustrations through each strike of their blades. Ben is ruthless, using his size for advantage, attempting to overpower her with sheer strength and power. Rey knows this and with a smile, she realizes that nothing has changed since the last time they faced off against one another. His style of fighting has always been the same: brute and direct with very little finesse.

Rey on the other hand, is light on her feet, quicker than him, and uses her smaller frame to her advantage. She’s able to dart around him and escape his advances easily, spinning the dual end of her blade to fend off even his most brutal attacks.

She swings at him, causing him to duck and he remains low, in a crouch, his chest and shoulders heaving in effort.

“My next advance,” he pants, “try to separate the blades.”

Rey shakes her head, moving to scale a large rock nearby, her teeth bared. “No, I’m doing fine.”

“Rey,” Ben warns, eyeing her movements, still crouched low with his saber lit in front of him. His non-blade hand moves forward, in defense as he watches her. “You have to try.”

“No,” she yells back, as she gets to the top of the rock, before turning on him.

“Yes,” is all he says before he springs, surprisingly agile for his frame, and for his usual style of fighting. He swings to strike left before quickly changing his course and striking right, and Rey, in a moment of instinct, with both hands on the hilt of her saber, separates them easily, almost as if the blade had listened to her mind instead if her body, rising one up to block his forthcoming blow, and dropping her other hand into a reverse grip.

She sees him grin, as he quickly changes course to strike her weaker hand, but she’s prepared, shifting quickly and crossing her blades to block the blow of his much larger weapon. Realizing her advantage, he drops back smoothly, defensive once more, and ready for the onslaught. He smiles wider as she descends upon him, rolling each saber in a circle before bearing her teeth, a primal scream and she lunges for him.

He ducks and weaves, striking hard at her, but Rey is ready. She suddenly feels free, light, _powerful_ , and it surges and infects her fighting. She feels more brutal, more like Ben, with each slash of her blades, getting the hang of two separate weapons much quicker than she had thought, now that she has found the key to separating them.

She’s advancing on him hard, and he’s in full retreat when he stumbles on a large, jagged rock on the floor, falling backward and dropping his saber. It skids across the rock floor with a clatter, extinguishing itself as he drops back on his elbows, eyeing her warily as she continues her advance.

She comes to a stop over him, crouching low and bringing one blade to his throat, the other raised high behind her.

“Yield.”

He drops his head down, panting, the ghost of a smile on his face. His hands come up to palm the outside of her thighs, fingers splaying.

“I yield.”

His voice is low, dangerous, and the look on his face causes Rey’s stomach to drop sharply. There is an implication in his words that stir something deep within her as she feels his hands moving again, but before they can slide too much higher, she stands abruptly, extinguishing her lightsabers and reattaching them. She clips it to her belt before she reaches one hand down to him, an offering to help him up.

He shoots her one last grin before taking her hand and allowing Rey to pull his much larger frame up off the ground.

He brushes his pants off. “You did very well. I knew you could do it.”

She smiles, pushing a loose hair behind her ear as she moves toward the canteen of water nearby. “Thank you. I think I’m ready.”

He hums as he comes up behind her, having retrieved his own lightsaber from where it had slid across the ground. She offers him the canteen, watching as he drinks greedily from it. He finishes, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and raising an eyebrow at her. She simply shakes her head and hefts her bag up off the ground.

“We should head back, it will be dark soon.”

He agrees, and they set out into the muggy landscape.

* * *

 

That night, after Rey has climbed into bed, her hair still damp from almost bath she took in the water out front, and the fire long dead, she feels the mattress dip behind her as Ben slides in next to her.

He says nothing as he maneuvers himself behind her, his arms awkward as he moves them around her, and she can feel how unsure he is, but still they don’t speak. He’s warm and solid, and he pulls her back against his chest, and Rey is almost overcome but the whirlwind of his thoughts as he settles them into a position they both find comfortable.

She slides her own hand over his forearm, where it rests across her ribs, tracing soft patterns against his skin to soothe him. His mind becomes calmer, less frenzied with each passing moment, and Rey finally sighs happily against him, nuzzling into the pillow.

“I can’t sleep,” he finally whispers, his lips against her ear, and Rey feels goosebumps spread all over her skin. “I’m scared, Rey.”

She says nothing at first and doesn’t move. He opens his thoughts to her, and she follows, listening to every fear as it plays through his mind into hers. He presses his face into her neck and draws a deep breath, and she can feel it tremble as it passes into his lungs.

“It will be okay, Ben. I will never let anything happen to you ever again.”

He sighs, but she can tell he’s not fully convinced.

“This could be the last night we ever share together,” he says, and Rey feels her heart clench. She feels his panic, his fear of losing her, his fear of dying.

Rey turns in his arms, tucking herself against his chest and sliding her leg over his hip. She sees his eyes go wide.

“Rey…”

She shakes her head at him, her hand coming to cup his cheek. “Shhh, Ben. Just hold me. Hold me and remember this tomorrow, and for however long it takes for this to be over. Just remember now, with you in my arms.”

She feels him tremble, and he leans forward to press his face into her neck. Almost immediately, Rey feels the tickle of dampness, tears she realizes, as he shakes in her arms.

“Shhh,” is all she whispers as she tightens her arms around him and waits for him to fall asleep against her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think, as always! Pushing to get chapter 13 out this week as well!
> 
> Bloodflower is still coming along, maybe out this week too, we shall see!


	13. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: "The willful suspension of disbelief"

They wake before the sun the next day, neither of them speaking as they dress and collect things from the cabin to bring with them.

They set out into the bleak landscape, and Rey wonders if this is the last time she will step foot on Voss. Ben’s ideas for returning if--no when--she chides herself, when the mission is complete, leave her hopeful but apprehensive for returning to this bland and humid hellscape. She shakes her head, wondering why their Force vision is enough to bring him back here, when she knows how much he hates being hot.

As they reach the cave, Rey feels his hand on her shoulder, warm and gentle, causing her to slow to a stop before entering the cave.

"Are you all right?” He asks gently, his voice low. It’s the first thing that they have said to each other all morning, spoken or through the bond. The impending hours seem to stretch heavily between them.

Rey nods. “I should ask you the same thing.”

He only shrugs. “If it goes the way it’s supposed to, neither of us should worry.”

He squeezes her shoulder and moves away, up the ramp of Rey’s ship and out of sight.

Rey follows him, moving to the crew quarters to pull out the duffel bag containing the supplies they will need for the mission. As she walks into the cockpit, she sees Ben programming coordinates from the pilot’s seat; it makes her smile.

She drops the duffel bag down on the ground stooping to rummage through it. She takes out the binders, ones they had used to film the fake capture video, as well as a shimmery rope like necklace, thin enough to be dainty, but heavier than it looks. There’s a large pendant, blue as the sky, that hangs from one of the links.

Ben turns as she sets the necklace down, eyeing it as she pulls out a change of clothes for herself from the bag.

“What is that?” He asks, gesturing to the necklace.

Rey shifts so that she’s sitting on the floor, picking the jewelry up and pressing the pendant. A screen pops up, full of characters and coding, and Rey furrows her brow as she presses again and again before answering his question.

“Well, I’m going to need a disguise for this. I can’t just show up with you in tow and ask to see Hux, can I?”

Ben rolls his eyes at her. “Yes, I know you are going in disguise, but how is a necklace a disguise?”

She’s still pressing the pendant, and then, with a final beep, she smiles, satisfied, and slips the necklace over her head.

She cocks a brow, and presses the pendant once more.

She feels a warmth flood over her face and down her body as Ben’s eyes widen and a startled gasp falls from his lips.

“What is that?” he asks after a moment, his eyes raking over her in awe and incredulity.

Rey stands, to catch a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the polished hull of the ship. “It’s an illusion stone. Your mother still has friends in low places.”

Ben stands and walks up to her, his hand rising as if he wants to touch her, but he refrains. “An illusion stone? I didn’t think those actually existed?”

Rey turns to face him and smiles. “They don’t. This is really just a computer that distorts the vision field. I can be anything I want to be, and after our talk yesterday, I think this is a proper disguise. A Togruta bounty hunter.”

And indeed, that is what she had programmed the pendant for. She wanted to be Ahsoka Tano, strong and fearless, wielding two sabers without hesitation as she went forward on this mission.

She watches, intrigued as Ben’s eyes move over her, taking in her tall white and red striped montrals, and her long head tails that extend down well past her hips. Her skin is blue, her face covered in white markings. She did not have much to go on when programming the stone, but there were many species pre-programmed for her to select from.

“What do you think?” Rey asks, as she steps away to pick up the clothes she has to complete her disguise. When she looks back at him, she finds him a bit shell shocked.

“I.. I’m not sure. How is it possible that-- I mean you’re still you under there, but,” he hesitates. “Do I like this so much because it’s you under there, or…” He gives her a pained look as she giggles.

“Have a thing for Togruta, Ben?”

“Leave me alone,” he grumbles as he moves back to the pilot’s seat. Rey laughs fully now, as she moves back toward the crew quarters to change.

She’s supposed to be a bounty hunter from the Outer Rim, so she had chosen rather… revealing clothes to sell the part. The top is a simple sleeveless shirt, black with thin straps that criss-cross over her front before coming to a stop just above her navel. The pants are also black, and come to her calves, with heavy boots to complete the look. She straps a blaster to her thigh, and a pair of knives to each of her biceps with strips of leather. Inside the quarters is a long rifle with a strap, and she slings it over her shoulder like her staff. A thin pocket in her pants allows her saber to be hidden easily. If anyone tries to inspect too closely, she will just use the force to throw them off.

Satisfied after she looks at herself in the reflective glass in the quarters, she heads back out to the cockpit.

Ben turns warily and at the sight of her, he pinches his eyes shut and groans. “Yeah, this is a problem.”

Rey, unable to help herself, and trying to fall into the character that she is meant to play, walks up to him and brushes her fingers lightly over the top of his ear. “Do you like it?” Rey lowers her voice, and its softer. She drops her accent, taking on a cool unaffected air to her tone of speaking.

 He jolts and stands abruptly, moving away from of the console and running a hand through his hair nervously. Rey only laughs, taking his spot at the console and setting the ignition sequence as he begins to pace. She lifts the ship easily from the floor of the cave, maneuvering them out of the small mouth of the cave and up into the atmosphere.

She punches in the coordinates and prepares to jump as Ben stops his pacing and flops into the other chair in the cockpit with a huff. She looks over at him, catching his eye as he smiles wryly and rolls his eyes.

She initiates the jump.

 

* * *

 

The hours to the rendezvous point pass quickly, and too soon, they are dropping out of lightspeed. Rey can sense how tense Ben is, it had been growing with each passing moment the closer they got to their appointment with destiny.

When Rey spots the destroyer, she feels him still next to her, and she reaches her hand to squeeze his leg in reassurance.

“Remember. We stick to the plan and it will be okay. Remember, Ben.”

He takes a deep breath and nods, before steeling himself and standing. He removes his tunic and picks up the binders, fitting them on himself. Rey stands as well, moving to make the ship look like it belonged to a bounty hunter and not a resistance fighter. Ben sits quietly in his chair as the destroyer becomes larger and larger in the viewport and there’s a beep of the comm.

Rey sits again, clearing her throat to once again find the cool voice she is using to channel a Togruta.

“State your business,” comes the crisp voices of the communications officer aboard the destroyer.

“Kira Shen, I believe I have an appointment with the Supreme Leader. I have something of his,” Rey murmurs softly, finding that she sounds more sultry than she had intended. She goes with it.

There’s a pause.

“Please submit the clearance codes that you were sent upon agreement of the rendezvous. When confirmed, please make your way to hanger Alpha.”

Rey submits the codes, and sets the ship to pilot toward the indicated hanger. She feels Ben’s tension boiling over next to her. She stands, moving out of sight of the view port and removes her necklace, her face once again her own she she stands in front of him. She leans toward him as she hears the affirmative beep that her codes are correct and presses her forehead to his.

“Calm your mind, Ben. We will be okay, but you need to find peace in this moment, if you want to come home alive.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” He whispers to her, pressing his forehead harder against hers.

She nods, but smiles. “Terrified.”

He huffs but she feels a large amount of tension leave his body.

 As the cockpit goes dark when they pass under the overhang of the ship, and into the hanger, Rey presses her lips to his.

 In her hand, she presses the button of the binary beacon and it begins to flash.

 

* * *

 

General Trestle strides into the hangar with purpose, meeting a squadron leader near the bounty hunters ship. The hangar is nearly devoid of all other personnel, save for the squadron and it’s leader.

“Report,” The General barks as the the squadron leader snaps to full attention.

“Sir, we have done a sweep and all appears to be normal.”

The General smiles. “Good, now why don’t we knock on the door and ask our guest to come join us.”

As if on cue, the gangway begins to lower, and the squadron of troopers all raise their blasters to point at the opening created in the ship.

The General watches as, a Togruta of all things, descends the ramp, swaying alluringly, as she yanks-- he can barely believe his eyes-- _Kylo Ren_ behind her.

“Darling,” Trestle hears her say to Ren, “Look at how all these people came to see your homecoming. Aren’t you pleased?”

She walks to the end of the ramp and shoves him roughly to ground. Trestle’s eyes widen as he takes in the sight before him. How could Ren be so cowed by this little savage? He had seen him use his magic before and overpower larger than her, what was going on here?

He moves forward to greet the blue skinned Togruta, extending his hand as he looks down at Ren on the ground.

“General Trestle,” he introduces, but the Togruta does not take his hand. She moves around him lithely, running her hand across his back and shoulders. Once she is back in front of him, she smiles and he feels himself warm around the collar.

“Kira Shen,” is all she offers.

“If I may ask, Kira Shen, how are you able to wield such power over him?” He asks in a low tone, looking down at the thin, broken version of the man who had once called himself Supreme Leader.

The Togruta smiles again and steps closer to the place where Ren rests on his knees. He watches as she runs her fingers through his hair fondly, but Ren flinches from her touch. “The binders, my dear, a very lucky find in my travels. They are specially made to imprison the force sensitive. Subdues them, makes them as normal as you and I. He’s not more terrifying than a newborn loth-cat.” She strokes his hair back from his face, revealing dark bruises across his cheeks. “Isn’t that right, darling?”

Trestle watches as Ren glares at Kira Shen, but she only smiles at him again.

 Trestle motions for two troopers to come forward, and they grab Ren and force him up from his knees.

“Your work will be handsomely rewarded. The Supreme Leader will be most pleased with you for delivering this scum for the punishment he deserves. I will have one of my men get the reward that was promised to you.”

He watches as her brows furrow.

“My dear General. The terms of my agreement clearly state that I am to accompany the prisoner to the Supreme Leader directly. I was promised an audience.”

Trestle shivers lightly at the change in the tone of her voice. Her cool, sultry voice has become harsh and unforgiving. He feels warm under his collar once more.

“Oh,” he sputters, motioning for the squadron leader. “Well, yes. Of course. It must have slipped my mind, of course.”

As the trooper comes to him, he whispers, low enough that he hopes Kira Shen cannot hear, “Please alert the Supreme Leader that we have Ren and him _and_ the bounty hunter are en route to his office.”

He nods at the General, and moves to the command tower in the center of the hangar.

Kira smiles at the General and steps forward to take his arm. “Come General, surely, you will be escorting us to see the Supreme Leader? I am most eager to meet him. I’ve always had a thing for redheads.”

Trestle coughs as he lets her take his arm, and they move toward the elevator, with Ren in tow, being shoved roughly forward against his will.

“Ah, ah,” Kira calls to the troopers. “Easy with the merchandise over there, please.”

Trestle sighs, calmed. Her voice is no longer cool and harsh, and he’s pleased. Something about her makes him want to do as she says. They’ve almost reached the elevator when the squadron leader calls from behind them.

“Sir! Surely we should remove the weapons before she is allowed before the Supreme Leader!”

Trestle stops abruptly. _Shit, of course. What is wrong with him?_

But, Kira only laughs. “Of course, my dear, how foolish of me,” and she begins to remove the various guns and knives that adorn her lithe body. She hands off her bag as well, but not before reaching in to pull out a long black hilt. Ren’s lightsaber.

“However, General, if I may. This, too, should be given to the Supreme Leader, should it not? I will give it to you for safekeeping as we journey to meet him.”

She extends her arm with the hilt pointed away, and Trestle takes it delicately. She is right, Hux would want this, too. He nods, and holds it in his free hand, offering his arm to her once again.

She smiles at him, and they step into the elevator, followed by Ren and the troopers. He looks at everyone in the elevator with disdain, an extra look lingering on Kira, and Trestle can’t help but feel proud. He has pleased his Leader. Ren is finally in their hands, and he will get a reward surely.

He feels Kira squeeze his arm and he looks down to see her smile as the elevator begins its ascent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Home stretch, friends! Let me now what you think, I'd love to hear everyone's theories or guesses about what is about to happen! These chapters are seemingly the easiest to write, because this is what I have been waiting for since I started this story. 
> 
> A thank you to rileybabe for making a beautiful [moodboard](https://reylofanficclub.tumblr.com/post/174598146772/rileybabe-reylo-fic-edit-for-obligation-by) for me, and I am honored to finally say I have one of your moodboards for my fic!
> 
> And a thank you to destinies for always helping me with ideas or when I'm stuck, even though she's not officially a beta reader.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Action! Intrigue!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! here we are. The climax. I have been planning this chapter from the beginning, I hope it lives up to the expectations that everyone has been waiting for! This is the first action I've written really, so I hope that it flows and is... action-y? Enjoy!

As the elevator rises, Rey tries to keep her emotions calm. She can feel Ben, practically radiating every emotion under the sun, and she tries her best to not let his feelings overwhelm her. She tries to send a calming energy throughout the elevator, in an attempt to help him find something akin to calm in the face of what they were heading for.

The general smelled… unpleasant. Sweat and fear and something else that Rey couldn’t identify, but she steadfastly tightened her arm through his and pressed herself just a bit closer. She heard him hum in delight and she tried not to retch.

 _Do you have to do that?_ Came Ben’s voice through her mind. He sounded tired and weary.

 _I’m playing a part, I’m hardly enjoying myself_. Rey thought back, tilting her head lightly to peek at him around the general’s pouchy belly. Ben’s brow was furrowed, his head dropped low.

_Well, it’s hardly helping my resolve to not murder everyone in this elevator._

_You can kill everyone later, I promise_ , Rey soothed, and she thought she saw the corners of his lips twitch at the thought.

The elevator slows, and the doors scissor open, the noise causing a shiver to run through Rey’s body. The memory of the last time an elevator opened on a First Order star destroyer, and what lay beyond, coming back to her with a crash. She draws a deep breath as the general leads her through the open door into a corridor.

Ahead, she sees two familiar red guards stationed outside a door. Her heartbeat quickens, adrenaline already beginning to course through her veins. This time, it’s Ben who soothes her, the feeling sweeping over her as they approach the door.

They come to a stop in front of the guards, and the door to a large office opens, revealing none other than Armitage Hux himself, sitting proudly at a desk, black and grand, a look of pure glee present on his face.

The party enters, and the Praetorian guards follow, as the door slides shut.

Rey drops Trestles arm and walks forward lightly, a wan smile on her face as she approaches the Supreme Leader.

 _Supreme asshole_ , she hears the thought flutter through Ben’s thoughts.

She drops to one knee in front of his desk.

“Thank you for accepting my audience, Supreme Leader,” Rey begins, the cool, unaffected tone of Kira floating into the room. Hux, whose eyes have been trained on Ben since they entered, flick to her momentarily. They linger, appraisingly, and Rey resists the urge to tremble. She feels a spike of anger from behind her.

“Of course,” Hux replies smoothly, his posh accent holding an air of gentleness as he addresses her. It does not soothe Rey, it only causes her to feel more alert, more on edge.

He stands, walking around the desk to approach the party. Rey rises, stepping back toward the group, as far from Ben as she can manage. They must be cautious.

General Trestle steps forward.

“Supreme Leader, the bounty hunter also obtained Ren’s lightsaber,” he starts, lifting the hilt toward Hux. Hux smiles and inclines his head toward Ben.

“How very fortunate. I am pleased that I will be able to murder you with your own weapon, you scum.” Hux takes the saber and steps toward Ben. Rey notices the awkward gait now, the stilted way he steps on his robotic limbs. She dissects the way he walks, looking for a weakness, a way to incapacitate should she need to.

 _Below the knee_ , Ben thinks to her as his gaze moves to Hux. Rey sees the intense loathing on his face, and it’s mirrored in the face of the red-haired man.

“Make him kneel,” Hux sneers, the soft politeness of before now gone. The trooper behind Ben kicks him roughly in the back of the knees and Ben drops tot the with a wince and a grunt. Hux smiles. "For respect."

Ben’s eyes turn up, pure hatred simmering through him. It’s intoxicating, the emotions that are playing through him now, and Rey feels almost lightheaded as they course through her. This is the darkside, this is how he draws strength through anger and hatred. Rey tries to control her breathing, finding that her breaths are coming more quickly than before.

Hux continues to smile at Ben, as he passes the hilt of the lightsaber back and forth between his hands.

“I can’t wait for the moment when I remove that hideous face from your shoulders, in front of everyone, for the whole galaxy to see. A traitor, a murderer, Leia Organa’s darling boy, finally brought to the end he deserves.”

Ben’s face smoothes, a calm spreading over him, which causes Hux’s face to change, his brow to furrow. He steps back, moving back toward Rey, his eyes flickering over his shoulder to look back at Ben once more. Rey feels fear and uncertainty begin to course through Hux as he moves closer to her.

“Where did you find him, Bounty Hunter?” Hux addresses Rey again, and as she opens her mouth to answer, Ben begins to speak. Rey feels her stomach clench and she wonders how long they have.

“You plan to execute me publicly?” Ben asks, his tone conversational, but sharp. His dry facade, the man he was when she first met him, resurfacing.

Hux turns sharply, and Rey notices a wobble in his step, and she wonders if anyone else is aware of how unsteady he is.

“Of course,” Hux snaps, stomping closer to Ben again before swinging his hand backwards and drawing across Ben’s cheek with a crack. Rey sees Trestle flinch, and wonders if he has been on the receiving end of such a strike before. “I want everyone to see the power and might I wield, and how I deal with traitors, no matter who they are.”

Ben’s rage simmers and Rey can feel the burn on her cheek as if she had been slapped. Her eyes flutter as the hatred boils inside of them both.

“Hmm,” is all Ben says, as he continues to look at Hux as if he is the most interesting thing in the world. This causes the triumphant look on Hux’s face to fautler.

“What?”

“Just curious. You told the galaxy that I was already dead. Surely, it would no doubt undermine your, _power and might_ , if suddenly I’m alive and you are going to execute me for all to see? What would the galaxy think then?”

Rey watches as Hux’s pale face becomes more sallow, his eyes widening and his eyebrows rising sharply.

“Tsk tsk, Armitage,” Ben drawls and this time, Hux rears back with a closed fist to strike Ben directly in the face. Rey tries not to flinch, trying to think quickly to diffuse the tension before Ben gets run through with his own lightsaber before their cue.

“Now, now, Supreme Leader,” Rey calls, adopting her most soothing voice. It works for a moment, Hux steps back and straightens his coat at the lapels, glaring down at Ben, as a trickle of blood drips from his nose. He smiles a serpent's smile at Ben, rolls his neck and turns back to Rey.

“My apologies, I don’t mean to act so brutally in front of a lady,” he drawls, his persona back in place as he moves closer to her, his eyes appraising once more.

Rey looks down, as if to blush, biting her lip as she looks back up at Hux. “No need to apologize, I have seen more brutality than you could imagine.”

Hux smiles and Rey feels her blood turn cold.

 _Rey, be careful_ , Ben pleads, his tone desperate in her head. She knows that she must tread carefully now. If Hux tries to touch her, their rouse will be discovered.

Rey moves away lithely, to move and sit herself upon the grand desk in the center of the room. Hux watches her, a hunger settling on his features that makes Rey shiver, and she feels the visceral rage begin to pump into the room from Ben once more.

Hux keeps his eyes trained on Rey as he lifts a hand.

“Leave us. The guard may stay.” He turns to level a glare at the General. “Everyone else, _out._ ”

They leave without ceremony, the Praetorian guards standing at attention on either side of the door when it closes. Hux moves closer to where Rey sits on his desk, setting the large hilt of Ben’s lightsaber down near Rey, but just out of her reach.

“Now, little huntress, I believe you wanted to discuss your,” his eyes flicked down over her bare legs before they moved back to her face. “ _Payment_.”

Rey smiled demurely, crossing one leg over the other. “Yes, Supreme Leader. What did you have in mind?” She ran a finger along the edge of his lapel, softly as she kept her eyes down. “I have always been fond of red-heads.”

 _Rey_ , Ben warned, and she could feel him seethe. This was not strictly part of the plan they had agreed upon, but their cue seemed to be taking longer than it should.

Hux’s eyebrows raised, a hideous smile spreading across his face. “Is that so? I've always enjoyed taming savages.”

Just as he was reaching to touch her, thankfully, mercifully, the ship lurched violently, nearly sending Hux off of his mechanical feet. Rey gripped the edge of the desk, and gasped, her eyes flicking to Ben and then to the guard. She waved her fingers discreetly, and in the commotion and noise that now spread through the ship, the click of the binders went unnoticed.

“What in the blazes?” Hux roared.

 _Now?_ Rey asked as her eyes went to Ben, who remained kneeling on the floor, the open end of his binders held in his hand to keep them appearing to still be locked. He nodded.

Rey leaped from the desk, pulling her lightsaber from the hidden pocket of her pants, breaking her staff apart in the middle and rounding on the two Praetorian guards.

“What?!” Hux roared, stumbling again as the ship rocked, and Rey launched forward as the guards lifted their weapons. She took both of them, ducking and countering each swing; they both had a sword in each hand. She felt strangely at ease as she fought them, not afraid like she had been when she had last been engaged in combat. Her training with Ben and her acquired comfort with two sabers causing her to feel calm and assured. Ben remained kneeling, watching her as she fought the guard, beheading one as Hux continued to shriek in outrage.

“What is the meaning of this?” Hux screamed, advancing on Ben. Rey’s eyes followed as she ducked an attack from the remaining guard, her stomach dropping as Hux grabbed Ben by his hair. He turned back to Rey and the guard. “Kill her!" He moved his face closer to Ben's face. "Is this some sort of escape plan? Did you make a deal with her? _Fool_!"

The guard swung his sword more harshly, but it affected his balance, giving Rey an upper hand to slice across his wrists, effectively removing his weapons. Glancing over her shoulder quickly, she could see how close Hux was to Ben now, his hand moving around Ben's neck. With a final strike of her saber, the guard fell. Hux made a noise of sheer agony as the guard fell, his fingers tightening around Ben's neck.

“No,” Rey seethed as she advanced toward Hux, swinging her saber to his throat, with a growl.

Hux tilted his head, his eyes wide, in an attempt to get away from the crackle of the saber. He let go of Ben’s hair, treading backwards until he bumped into the desk, Rey following his movements, the saber still drawn at his throat.

Ben watched, his face strangely calm, still on his knees as Rey snarled like a feral animal at Hux. He had been too close. He wasn’t supposed to get the close to Ben, to put him in danger. She wanted to kill him herself.

“Rey.”

Ben’s voice was soft as he finally spoke aloud, causing Hux to do a double take, from Ben and then to her. Rey extinguished her one saber, sliding it back into her pocket before reaching for her necklace. As she lifted it over her head, she saw Hux’s eyes widen, realization and understanding spreading across his face.

“You.”

Rey quirked an eyebrow, moving her still lit saber tighter against Hux’s throat. He flinched away, but still held murder in his eyes as he glared.

Rey looked back at Ben, and he rose from his knees, his eyes never leaving hers, the intensity in his face causing heat to bloom in her belly. He dropped the binders to the floor, and Rey heard Hux swallow audibly as Ben made his way closer.

Ben lifted his hand, calling his saber back to him and he ignited it, the dangerous unbalanced crackle of the blade filling the silence. Ben looked down at it before his eyes moved back to Rey’s.

“You-- you can’t kill me,” Hux pleaded, almost as if he was trying to come up with a reason to bargain with. “Surely, the Resistance would have a trial!”

Ben points the tip of his blade at Hux’s heart as the ship rocks again, this time more violently than ever before. At some point, the doors have cracked open, revealing the noise and commotion from the corridor. They don’t have much time to dawdle.

Rey lowers her saber now, her eyes locked on Ben as he advances, ever closer to Hux, the smell of singed fabric wafts into the air and Hux tries to back even further against the desk.

“A trial?” Ben sneers, and Rey sees the man whom she ran from, the man that scares her. “After you were going to behead me, here, shrouded in the dark?”

Hux sputters, clearly knowing that he’s run out of cards to play. The ship lurches again.

“Ben,” Rey warns, and his eyes flick to hers for a moment, and she sees her Ben again, if only for an instant. He nods, and he turns his gaze to Hux again.

“What? No! No--Please wait--”

Ben just stares, unaffected. “Long live the Supreme Leader.”

He lunges, a flick and a twirl of the grotesque red blade, and the smell of singled flesh fills the air. Rey watches as Hux’s body slumps, and flinches away from the thud that accompanies his head falling to the ground.

Rey looks back at Ben after a beat, his harsh breaths filling the air, his eyes down cast as he stares at Hux’s limp body. Then, they flick to hers, and she feels the heat bloom once more within her.

There is silence as the blade of his saber is extinguished, their eyes never leaving each other as he draws himself closer to her where she is pressed against the desk. She moves, wordlessly, lifting herself onto it as he plants his hands next to her hips, caging her in. His eyes are black, pupils blown with want, and she trembles as she remembers how he looked at her in the throne room. The lust that pumps into the room around them is heady and heavy.

They simply stare at one another, their breaths harsh and intermingling as they draw closer, closer to one another. This isn’t the time or the place, but the adrenaline and heat that is surging through them, as the ship threatens to break apart around them, becomes too much.

Ben’s mouth comes against hers roughly, wasting no time as she gasps, her arms coming around his neck. His tongue surges forward into her mouth, claiming her, as she holds on to him for dear life. His lips move quickly, and she tries her best to keep up, noises coming unbidden from the back of her throat as he pants into her mouth each time he pulls away to slide his lips over hers once more.

Her fingers move to twist into his hair as she learns the rhythm of his lips, returning his kisses with equal fervor. One of her legs draws up to hook around his hip as one of his hands moves from the desk to cradle her head, leaning further into her. Rey moans as his lips leave hers and begin to slide down her neck, teeth and tongue, harsh and soothing on her skin.

Rey’s eyes lull open as his mouth moves against her skin, and she sees movement in the corridor, the seriousness of their situation trying to come into focus but not succeeding.

Just as she’s about to close her eyes again, she sees Finn’s face flash past the opening of the door and her body stills, her eyes going wide as Ben continues to nip at her skin. She reaches up, her fingers digging into his shoulder as she tries to find her voice, but he just holds her tighter, a growl coming from his throat, mistaking her panic for ardor.

She keeps her eyes trained on the door when Finn’s face slowly comes back into view, a look of sheer confusion coloring his features. Rey yanks at Ben’s hair.

“Ben, stop,” she whispers urgently as Finn calls “Rey?” into the room.

Ben stills, stops dead where his lips are on Rey’s shoulder, fingers in her hair, hips pressed deeply against hers on the desk, and he darts up straight, his head whipping to the door, his eyes meeting Finn’s.

“ _Kylo Ren_?”

Ben looks back at Rey before wiping a hand down his face, and offering his other hand to Rey to help her down. He squeezes her hand once before he drops it, turning to stride past Finn, without acknowledging him, and out into the corridor.

Rey casts a glance into the room before she walks to meet Finn in the corridor. He glances over her shoulder at Hux’s body, making a grossed out face before he inclines his head in the direction that Ben has disappeared to.

Rey just shakes her head. “Later, Finn. We have to go.”

Finn nods, and they break into a run down the hallway, following the dark form of Ben as he disappears down the hallway.

“We have to get to the hangar,” Finn calls when they catch up, as the ship lurches and tilts, causing the three of them to slide roughly into a wall. Rey feels Ben’s hands come to her waist softly to steady her, earning another strange look from Finn.

“I don’t even want to know,” Finn mutters as he gets his bearings and leads them to an elevator.

“We have a ship,” Rey tells Finn as they ride down, and she prays they make it to the floor they need before the ship breaks apart and renders the elevators useless.

Finn nods, his eyes going from Rey to where Ben looms in the corner, discomfort clear on his face. “I have a ship, too, I hope that it’s not blown up. I really don’t want to be stuck on another First Order destroyer as it disintegrates.”

“Okay,” Rey breathes, the tension in the elevator reaching a breaking point as the elevator finally comes to a stop and the doors open into the same hangar they entered in, bathed in sheer chaos.

There are Resistance fighters swarming, blaster fire careening off every wall as the three of them begin to run across the hangar bay. Rey ignites one of her sabers at the same time Ben does, deflecting blaster bolts as the make their way to Rey’s ship. With a blast, Rey hears Finn curse, shrapnel from a ship shooting across the bay. “Why does this always happen to me?” He groans in misery as Rey grabs his jacket and drags him toward her ship.

The troopers are advancing toward the three of them as they move, shooting directly at them now as they draw closer and closer to the ship, fires all around them and explosions shaking the ground as they make their way across the hangar. Finn calls for the other fighters to get to their ships, and they fight back as they all work to retreat to the safety.

Rey runs up the gangway, dragging Finn, shoving him toward the cockpit and screaming for him to start the ship before whirling around to find Ben. She sees him, a few meters off, deflecting bolt after bolt.

“Ben, please! Now, we have to go now!”

The destroyer shudders around them, and Rey feels the whole ship begin to tilt, more and more violently as it becomes clear the ship was finally and truly breaking apart. Rey looks around in panic before she calls for Ben again.

“Please! Ben!”

Finn calls from the cockpit, “We have to go now, Rey! We don’t have much time, and Poe is bringing the rest of the bombers in!”

Finally, Ben turns and staggers up the gangway, Rey dragging him by his shoulders as she slams the button to lift the ramp and seal the door.“Go, Finn, _GO_.”

The ship jerks upward as Rey clutches Ben close to her, her breath coming out in sharp, shaky gasps as she drops her head back against the wall in relief. They had made it out.

Ben trembles against her and she looks over at him, where he kneels next to her, his hand clutching his side, his breaths weak and labored. Rey sees blood.

“No. Ben, oh no.” She lurches forward, her hands pressing against his wound as she looks up into his face, his skin pale.

He presses his forehead to hers as she clutches her hands tighter, feeling the warmth of blood spreading over her hands and arms.

“Finn! Contact Leia. He’s hurt, he’s bleeding!” She presses her lips to his cheek. “Ben, please, hold on,” her voice was barely a whisper and she feels him nod his head.

“You don’t have to worry, Rey. I’m not planning on going anywhere. Not without you.”

Rey couldn’t help the sob that escapes her lips as he brings his hand to clutch at her head, his fingers tightening in her hair as he holds her face where it’s pressed against his cheek. He trembles violently against her, coughing and she presses her hands firmer into his side as he slumps, heavy against her side.

“Finn, please,” she whimpers, unsure if he could hear her. “Hurry.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are almost at the end :((( See you guys soon!


	15. Chapter 15

Ben feels heavy.

He feels like he was swimming in the lake on Naboo, the light filtering above him, shimmering through the water, diffused the deeper the water got. His chest feels heavy, tight as he floats beneath the surface in the dark water as the sun blinded overhead. He’s been underwater a long time, but he feels no stab in his chest of oxygen deprivation, just a heaviness that holds him below the surface. He feels warm, content as he drifts below the surface and he wonders how long he can stay under without needing to breathe. He doesn’t remember coming to the lake, or getting into the water. How did he get here?

The water feels warm against his skin, and the sun above his head seems to be getting brighter and brighter. He’s floating up, up, up toward the sun.

When he opens his eyes, he jolts and gasps, his eyes darting around the room to get his bearings. The first thing that he is aware of is pain. A lot of it. Every part of his body seems to scream and ache, a sharp pain in his abdomen causing him the most grief.

He’s in a hospital room, a makeshift one at least, wires and tubes hooked to various parts of his body. He looks around wildly until his eyes land on the last person he expected to be here.

His mother.

“Ben,” she greets, and he’s struck at how she has aged since the last time he’s seen her. The war and the stress have worn her down and she looks small to him, smaller than she ever had before. She has always been small, but in spirit and energy, she was huge, beyond belief, so it strikes him to see her so diminished.

“General Organa,” he greets in return, a perfunctory response. He watches as she raises an eyebrow at him, leveling a familiar stare upon him, one that has always made him feel as if he is being x-rayed, like she can see him clearer than anyone. She probably can.

“Did you sleep well?” She inquires, adjusting herself in her chair to make herself more comfortable, as if she is settling in for a long while. “I apologize for the lack of fancy bacta tanks that the First Order has in excess."

His mouth feels dry. “How long have I been out?”

“Three days,” she tells him, her voice gentle, and it stings, for her to speak like that to him. Like she hadn’t sent him away; like she hadn’t forsaken him; like he deserves kindness; like he had not killed—

“You took a blaster bolt to the abdomen, it was pretty bad. You were barely hanging on by the time the shuttle reached the ship.”

Ben remembers.

“Where’s Rey?”

Leia’s brow quirks once again, but she smiles.

“She’s resting. She’s been sitting here almost constantly for these past few days and I finally forced her to go to her quarters and lie down for a while. She did not go quietly.”

Ben hums and turns away, his eyes drifting back to the ceiling. He wishes it had been Rey to be here when he woke, with her small hand in his, her beautiful face smiling at him. But, instead, he was forced to face his demons.

“She seems very protective of you. She would barely let you out of her sight when you came aboard. I take it a lot happened with the two of you; a lot changed?”

Ben makes another noncommittal noise, still not looking at his mother. What was he supposed to say? What was he going to tell her about the time that Rey and he shared on Voss? A lot _had_ changed between them, and he hoped that there was still more to grow between them.

“Are you going to execute me?” Ben asks, his tone blunt and dry, his eyes flicking to her. Coming back here had not really been his goal, he had wanted to return to Voss when their mission was over, he had told Rey as much. Slithering home to the Resistance had not been something he was interested in, but here he was, at his mother’s mercy. Rey had saved him by bringing him here to Leia, and now he was once again in debt to her.

Leia looks startled at the question, sitting up straighter, her eyes creasing ever so lightly. “No. Ben, of course not. Why—?”

“I’m a criminal. I know there’s been a price on my head for sometime now, I figured coming back here would force your hand. I would have to answer for my crimes.”

Leia makes an impatient noise and rolls her eyes. “Is there ever going to be a time where you are not this dramatic about everything?”

Ben looks down, feeling a slight flush in his cheeks. Thirty years and he is still easily cowed by her. She huffs a breath through her nose.

“I sent Rey to bring you home. I sent her to try and show you that I had not given up on you, that I was not going to leave you to die, alone, in the middle of some nowhere planet. I needed you, that’s true, to help and bring down the First Order, because no one knew inside better than you. But,” she leans a little forward and places a palm on the bed next to him, but not close enough to touch, “I hoped that sending her, and allowing her to build trust with you, that it might be enough to sway you into coming home. There will be no trial, there will be no execution. There will only be what you want, and what you feel your place is after the things you have done. It’s something you must find within yourself.”

Ben’s chest feels tight again, and his eyes prickle with traitorous unshed tears. How could his mother show him this amount of kindness after the things that he has done? After who he had become, after the hatred that fills him, even now, for the things that happened to him as a boy because of her. Because of Han. They abandoned him, sent him away and he hated them. And still, here she sits, with kindness in her eyes, both offering and seeking forgiveness to heal them both.

Ben only nods, having nothing to say, but Leia continues to look at him, hard and searching, causing Ben to feel the weight of her stare, the tightness turning heavy in his chest. 

“I’m sorry, Ben. For everything. For sending you away, for—”

“Okay,” he interrupts, his voice cracking, unable to take it. He can’t bear it, right now, to hear her say the things he has longed to hear her say. He has also dreaded this moment for over a decade, steeling himself away in the hopes that there would never be an opportunity for it to happen. The chasm in his soul, split open, deep and painful, aches. The war battles within him, between his darkness: hatred, resentment, fury, chaos and his light: companionship, kindness, forgiveness, _love_ . The battle shreds him open further, mars his soul further. He wants to hold on to the things he’s known for so long, the things that give him his strength. He’s hated his parents, his uncle, his _life_ for so long, it’s made him who he is, it’s helped him harness the true power within him, the full limit of his his power. But, the time with Rey, the lure of her soul, soft, gentle, unharmed, it calls to him and makes his ruined soul sing. The temptation to leave his hatred behind to mend his soul with her help, it calls so loudly. Now his mother sits before him, ready to offer forgiveness and hope, and the call to light screams.

He finds that he cannot draw a breath, a loud strangled noise pulls through his mouth as his shoulders begin to shake. He looks to Leia, his mouth opening and closing, unable to speak as these feelings crash over him. Acceptance. A place to truly belong. With Rey. With his family. His eyes dart back and forth between his mother’s as the vision beside the lake plays behind his mind. His mother had been there, waiting as Rey called him and their son for dinner.

“Mother,” he chokes, tears flowing freely. He trembles, his lips working as he tries to bring himself back together. He feels like he’s shattering. “I’m— I can’t—“

Leia stands, moving swifter than her age should allow, she she moves to the bed to draw him into her arms. His body burns, his aches magnified by the pain in his heart and soul as everything seems to crash over him. He lets himself be pulled to her, the first time she’s embraced him in over a decade. The first time since he went away, left her for Yavin. The last time she had said goodbye. He forgets everything before, the heartbreak, the accusations, the betrayal, the resentment. He remembers the last moment she was his mother. The last moment before now. “ _Mom_.”

“Shhh. Ben,” she soothes, and though he cannot see her face, he hears her voice, thick and weak as she says his name like a prayer.

“I’m—I killed him, I thought it was right. I had to break free from the things I loved. I _loved—_ “

“No.” She cuts him off, her arms tightening enough to make him gasp in discomfort. “None of that now. No. I know.”

“I have to tell you,” he tries again, overwhelmed by the need to confess his sins. His mother is his confessor, she must know all of his crimes. Only she can give him the absolution he seeks.

“Not now. There will be time. Ben. No.”

He makes a noise of distress and he feels something within himself break. He feels her in the Force, her grief and pain, it would bring him to his knees if he were standing. He cries, his arms coming around her, clutching her shoulders as if he were a boy again. When was the last time she held him?

He loses track of how long they sit there, but his body screams and he begins to pull away as the door to the room slides open and Rey bursts in, panic on her face, her eyes wild and clearly disoriented from sleep.

She stops short when her eyes fall to the bed.

“Oh,” she breathes and her cheeks flame. “I woke up and I felt pain, I thought…”

Leia stands again and Ben pulls his arms back to his lap, wincing again as his body protests. “I can go,” Rey offers, turning back toward the door.

“No, Rey. Stay,” Leia says as she turns away from him, not before catching his eye for the briefest moment. He watches as she moves away from the bed toward Rey, drawing her into an embrace.

“Everything is fine,” he hears his mother murmur to Rey before she glances back to him. He sees her eyes, warm and still red, but bright, a promise of more discussion later before she steps through the door, leaving Rey and Ben alone.

Rey moves to his side instantly, lingering at the edge of his bed in a moment of clear indecision, and he can see her mind, feel her uncertainty. Should she climb into bed with him? Does he hurt? Is it appropriate? Does he want it? Does _she_ want it? Where do they stand?

In response, he reaches a hand to her, opening his arms in invitation. It almost surprises him, how open and eager he is for her, for her nearness, for her touch. A week ago, he had snarled at her and told her to leave him alone, casting her out to protect his tender heart from her rejection. But, now, here, safe, he wants nothing more than to be near her, touch her, hold her, for the foreseeable future.

She slides into the bed next to him, careful of the wires that adorn his body, her body warm and soft. She presses her face to his neck, her hand moving to rest against his chest as his arms come around her. The pain in his body melts away, the splintering of his soul calming, mending, in her presence. He feels lighter, he feels himself heal.

“Are you all right?”

Her voice is a whisper against his skin, and he shivers, his arms moving to hold her tighter. She tilts her head on his shoulder, looking up at his face and lifting her hand to trace the tight tear marks that have dried on his cheeks. He turns his head to press a kiss to her palm.

“I’m all right,” he assures her, his mouth still pressed to her hand.

“It woke me, the pain you felt,” she tells him, her voice still soft. “I was worried— you wouldn’t wake up, and I thought..” her brows crease together, her eyes tracing his face.

He leans down, bringing his hand to her face, dragging the pad of his thumb between her eyes, smoothing the crease from her frown. “I told you not to worry.”

She sighs, almost a laugh, and closes her eyes and he can tell how tired she is. Her thoughts are jumbled as he tries to follow them, a habit that he cannot seem to break. He knows that she doesn’t care for it, not after he had invaded her mind so cruelly before, but he finds himself addicted to being in her mind. Following the thoughts that she does not say, feeling her emotions makes him feel closer to her, more intune.

She settles a bit closer, her leg, bent at the knee, coming across his legs as she makes herself more comfortable. His hand moves away from her face, and he brings down to rest on her thigh, pulling her closer as he curves into the space against her body. His abdomen protests the angle as he shifts, and he sucks a breath in sharply through his teeth.

“What is it?” Rey asks sharply, shifting in a panic, her hand going to his side. “Did I hurt you?”

Ben drops his head back, keeping his hand on her thigh and his body pressed to hers snuggly, trapping her and not allowing her to move away. “I’m fine, everything is just tender.”

Rey stills against him for a moment, before he feels her easing back against him.  

“How long do I have to stay here,” he asks after a while, breaking their companionable silence. Her fingertips draw patterns against the fabric of his hospital tunic while his draw patterns on the sliver of skin exposed of her lower back, where her shirt has ridden up.

“I’m sure they will let you out after a doctor checks on you, now that you’re awake. Does it hurt terribly? I’m sorry, they didn’t have a lot of bacta, we had to make due with what they had. I’m sure it will scar.”

He squeezes his hand where it rests on her thigh. “It’s fine. I don’t mind more scars.”

She sighs, but he senses the amusement in her mind.

“But how do you feel now,” she hesitates and he glances down at her. “After.”

He knows what she’s referring to, and honestly he’s not entirely sure. He shrugs his shoulder and leans forward to brush his lips against hers. “You are safe, that’s what matters.”

She shakes her head at him, her hand coming up to press her fingers to his lips. “No. _You_ are safe, _that’s_ what matters. I could have lost you.”

He sees her mind now, freely opened to him, and he sees himself, through her eyes. His pale face, slumped against the floor of the ship; the way his limbs hang limply off the sides of the gurney as he is rushed away. Blood. He feels how she felt, scared, heartbroken. She begged him to live. _We made it through this, Ben. We cut down the First Order, you can’t die now, please, we’ve only just finally found each other._ She sits next to him as he lays, tubes everywhere, glass dome covering him, and he feels how tired she is. She doesn’t sleep.

He leans down, now, and presses his mouth to hers. He knows he’s been unconscious for days, and he needs a shower, but he can’t help it. This woman, this force of nature, his equal, his counterpart, his adversary, she lies here with him, in his sick bed, after sitting vigil for hours because she wants him. Cares for him. After the things he has done. The splintering he felt before returns, shredding him open once more, wounds barely healed before the edges are forced apart. The light sears him open, and his heart beats wildly as he feels her energy permeate his skin.

“Rey,” he breathes. It’s a groan, and he feels pain as he light pushes the dark away. It’s too much, too many realizations. His mother and her forgiveness. Rey and her love. He deserves nothing, but it is freely given to him, a monster.

“Not a monster,” Rey breathes back, following his thoughts now, opening herself to feel his pain, to take it away. “Just let go.”

Their lips find each other’s again, and Ben is overcome by how it feels to be in her arms. To have her accept him, his kiss, his touch.

He inhales deeply, shifting again, his mouth pressing more firmly against hers, his hand gripping her thigh, pulling it higher on his hip as he tilts himself over her. He suddenly feels an overwhelming feeling of abandon, relief, that they are here, they are safe. He is no longer hunted by the galaxy, and Rey. Rey, Rey, Rey. She is here and there is nothing that stands in their way. No obstacles, nothing looming.

He groans again as he presses himself against her and she sighs, breathy against his mouth as her hands move into his hair, yanking him closer. His eyes flutter at the feeling, the sharp pain mixed with pleasure. Her hands roam, and he feels his skin heat under her touch, his breath coming too fast, his heart beating too wildly.

A loud, sharp beeping starts to fill the room, startling them both, and they pull away quickly, remembering where they are. Ben looks down at Rey’s dazed face; heavy eyes and swollen lips as the door to the room slides open, revealing a harassed looking medical officer. She looks at the situation and rolls her eyes.

“You shouldn’t be in that bed with him!” She scolds as she bustles into the room. Rey’s cheeks flame even darker and she moves to disengage herself from the grip Ben has around her. He lets her go reluctantly, his hands sliding from her slowly, lingering as she moves from the bed.

He hears the doctor muttering under her breath as she checks the machines, and Rey still stands by the bed as the doctor begins to poke and prod roughly at Ben’s body causing him to wince.

“How are you feeling, Solo?” She asks, tersely, still manhandling him, and Ben’s brain shorts out a bit at the way she addresses him. His brow creases and his mouth opens a closes a bit like a fish.

She touches him too firmly on his wound and he jolts, his breath catching sharply as he shies away from her hands.

She raises an eyebrow. “Still tender?” She remarks and nods, moving away and fussing back with the machines next to the bed. “It will be for about a week. We didn’t have enough bacta to heal it properly. There were more important people that needed to be healed over you, no matter what the General said.”

He feels indignation surge from Rey, and he can tell this is not the first time that this topic has been brought up in front of her. She moves her hand and grips Ben’s forearm tightly, and his eyes flutter again as he feels anger surge from her to him.

“Isn’t it lucky that there was enough to save him?” Rey snaps through clenched teeth, her fingernails cutting his skin. He finds that he likes the fury that colors her beautiful face, fury on his behalf. The memory of the star destroyer comes back, when she charged Hux as he brought his hands around Ben’s throat. She was fire and fury and she was his.

The doctor shrugs, giving Rey a patronizing smile. “I guess it was.”

She busies herself for a few moments more, and Ben moves his hand to grip Rey's tightly, making her look at him.

 _It’s okay,_ he soothes her _, it’s going to be like this. No one wanted me here in the first place, you know that._

She shakes her head at him. _No, I won’t let them treat you like this._

The doctor finally moves away from the bed, toward the door, turning to regard them once more.

“Take it easy, one more night here and then you are free to go…” she hesitates, gesturing vaguely. “To go wherever you like. That wound needs time to heal and you lost a lot of blood. We were beginning to wonder if you’d wake up at all, but,” she trails off again and shrugs. “You’re free to go tomorrow.”

Ben nods, squeezing Rey’s hand and watching her face as she continues to glare at the doctor. He fights a smile.

“Stay out of that bed,” the doctor says in parting to Rey as the door closes behind her, leaving them alone once more.

Rey rolls her eyes and moves to climb back into the bed, settling herself once again in the position she was in before, curled to his side with her face pressed against his neck. She hums into his skin, and he feels warmth and contentment rolling off of her.

He feels tired, suddenly, heavy again. The warmth of Rey’s body against his with her soothing light flowing through him weighs him down. He’s sore and uncomfortable after being prodded by the doctor and he just feels like he wants to sleep forever, to be pulled under the water again and float until there is no more pain, no more anguish.

Rey reaches up, her fingers soft, light, fluttering against his forehead as she pushes his dirty hair away from his face.

“Rest, I can feel how tired you are. Rest, and heal.”

He gazes down at her, and he wonders for a moment how he got here, questioning if any of this is real. He nods his head at her request, his arms coming around her body, pulling her tighter as he settles in, lulled to sleep by her heartbeat and warmth and her light.

 

* * *

 

 

Leia walks down the hallway, coming to stop to gaze through the small window of the door to Ben’s hospital room. She hesitates at what she sees, choosing not to enter and disturb the two she sees curled together on the bed.

The doctor had reported to her a while ago about his progress, complaining wildly about Rey having been in his bed. Leia had just shook her head and dismissed the doctor before heading down to see him again, hoping to speak to Rey and him together, now that they had had time for a reunion.

But the sight before her pulls at her heart far more than she could have imagined. Her son looks at peace, calm, _whole_. There is a light from him, distinctly his, not Rey’s that she can feel as she looks at him. The light that she knew when he was a boy, when it pulsed clear and strong over any darkness that wormed its way in. This is far more than she had ever hoped would come from sending Rey on this mission to find him, but she can’t help but feel overjoyed that they have found each other, they have found what they have been seeking in each other.

Ben’s arms wrapped protectively around Rey, and Rey, though dwarfed by his large frame, seems to possess him, hold him, protect him.

She smiles as she watches them sleep, and wonders how long they will stay here on board, before they decide to move on, somewhere together. Leia knows that Ben is uncomfortable to be here, she can feel what he does not say, and she knows how many of the crew feel about his presence here, not as a prisoner, but as a guest.

Originally, she had set aside two separate quarters for them, but, she decided that it would be a waste, knowing they would only use one, anyway.

She watches as Ben stirs, shifting in the cramped bed, his arms tightening around Rey’s small form and pulling her closer to him as he moves. His eyes flutter before opening, finding hers through the glass of the door.

She feels him in the Force and smiles gently at him; he’s content but uncomfortable from his healing wounds, but he returns her smile, just a little, before pressing his cheek to Rey's hair and closing his eyes.

And Leia knows it will be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm admittedly letting Ben off a little easy. But, I wanted for him to come home after all of this, and facing his demons and not have there be a continued struggle for him. He's had to come to terms with a lot, and there's still a lot of him to deal with before he gets to be the person we saw in Rey's vision. 
> 
> One more chapter and then an epilogue. Next chapter has what we have all been waiting for. These kids are having a hard time holding out. ~~I promise I did not mean for this to be such a slow burn, it just kind of... happened??~~


End file.
